Child Borne of Spring
by iaso
Summary: Haruko Maito was a ballerina in her last life and finds herself as a ninja in her new one. No, she doesn't understand the connection either. She also doesn't understand why she's alive - if she's even alive in the first place - but she figures that she might as well have a bit of fun for as long as she's stuck on this disastrous ride. SI/OC as Gai's twin.
1. Ring Around the Rosie

**Trigger Warning:** In later chapters of this fic, there will be some content that might be triggering for people who deal with dissociation and dissociative episodes, so please read with care. This is a fic that deals heavily in the theme of identity and has points where it can become intense. If this will be something that will make you uncomfortable or be difficult for you to read, please click off now.

A second warning will be posted above the chapter where this content begins.

* * *

 _Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies,_

 _Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down._

* * *

Haruko hums to herself as she waits for the teacher to take her spot at the front of the room.

It's a disjointed little tune, one that she makes up as she goes, but she likes how it sounds and she doesn't staunch the volume of it, even if it means the seat beside her remains vacant. She sits alone in most of her classes anyways, has been since they started their classes a couple of weeks ago, and she doesn't see why the kunoichi classes would be any exception.

She taps a bare foot against the wooden floors and sways in her seat, following the gentle beat of her own tune. Waist-length black locks swish against the back of her seat as she moves. She lets her lips lift up into a serene smile that multiple people have told her is unnerving.

All around the room, girls have their hands raised to their mouths but none of them fully mask the sounds of their whispers, passed between each other like candy. Words are met with giggles and condescending stares. Eyes are averted. Backs are turned to her.

Haruko catches it all.

" _What a weirdo_."

" _Her brother's weirder."_

" _Her brother? No way—their dad is the biggest weirdo."_

" _Dad said that I gotta avoid 'em both."_

" _Mine too!"_

Haruko ignores it all.

Judgement, cruelty, and assumptions—five-year-olds are the masters of all three. Children are like miniature drunkards. Too young to have a filter, too young to know what snakes slither from their mouths and sink their poisoned fangs into the unfortunate recipient at each offhand comment. Young and ignorant in the worst way possible. They'll learn, one day. Haruko doesn't listen to it in the meantime; poisons are her pleasure and she's plenty resistant already.

A woman strides into the room and stops to stand in front of her desk. The room falls into a hush at her presence.

Haruko quits her humming. She slips her feet back into her sandals and smooths down the skirt of her pink and green floral dress. It's her favourite dress. Soft pink with green, leafy details that wind along the length of it. The best part of being a child again is that all of the clothing is so adorable and sweet, especially when she shops in the civilian parts of the village. The ninja clothes, even for children, are dreadfully practical and boring, single colours and made of functional material instead of comfortable cotton. What a yawn. Haruko takes the flashy vibrancy and overt girliness any day.

The woman, who Haruko assumes is their teacher, is on the younger side, with blonde hair a bit past her shoulders and olive-green eyes that sit behind the cover of glasses. She wears a traditional kimono, the colour of it a mossy green that compliments the hues of her eyes and skin and hair all in one fell swoop, and has half of her hair pulled into a bun at the back of her head while the rest sits loose. She smiles at them—it's a good smile, the kind that disarms and calms, could assure a person of their safety even as the tip of a kunai dug into the delicate skin of their back.

 _Well_ , Haruko thinks, _this woman certainly knows what she's doing._

She finds comfort in that.

"Hello, girls," she says. Her voice is controlled and softer than a summer breeze. "What a pleasure to meet you all. My name's Nonou Yakushi, and I'm the kunoichi class teacher here at the Academy."

"Hello, Miss," the class chants.

Haruko tilts her head and watches the woman move behind her desk in measured movements. Nonou reaches down to pull a clipboard from her bag. "I'll start by taking attendance."

Each time a name is called, Haruko sees a hand go up and a high-pitched voice chimes in, "Present!"

"Haruko Maito."

Haruko considers mimicking the rest of the girls. "Hello," she says instead and raises her hand in a wave.

The girls break out in giggles, as if Haruko has done a woefully idiotic thing. How silly of her to answer in a way other than them. What is she thinking? What a loser.

She notices Nonou watch her with interest for a second before ticking something off on her clipboard. "Thank you."

Nonou breaks them up into groups after she finishes attendance and gives each of them a vase of flowers to arrange however they please. The girls crowd around their tables, squeezing in so as to avoid anybody having to sit with Haruko.

This way, Haruko has her own vase to arrange entirely as she pleases.

She starts to hum again and picks at the flowers. She changes their places with no particular goal in mind other than to make it look nice—she knows nothing about flower arranging. All she knows are complimentary colours. For a kunoichi, flower arranging is more significant: kunoichi use flowers as one uses pen and paper to pass messages. Haruko thought of taking out a book or two on the subject, but ultimately didn't bother. She's glad she left it; if she already knew how to do it, the fun of the class would be ruined.

Nonou visits her table before the rest of the girls. She slides into the seat across from Haruko and settles her hands in front of her. She observes at first, her expression clean of anything besides a polite curiosity. That stretches on for a couple of minutes.

Finally, she asks, "What song is that?"

"It's a lullaby," Haruko says.

"Oh?"

"Yep," she answers. "My mom used to sing it to me before she died."

Nonou blinks and Haruko gets a sense of satisfaction at the off-balance look that slips onto her face before Nonou schools it out. "Is it, now?"

Haruko giggles, an airy noise that resembles tinkling bells. "Not really, no," she says. Nonou shifts. Haruko waits a second. "My mother died giving birth to me, so I never heard her sing any lullabies. I'm just making it up."

Nonou hides her unease this time around, if she feels any. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"S'okay. I've got dad and Gai, so I'm not lonely," Haruko says as she places a carnation amongst a cluster of colourful tulips. She fluffs up the flowers. "And dad always says mom watches over us from up in the sky."

"I agree with him," Nonou says. "Your mother, I'm sure, is very proud of you."

Haruko makes a little noise of agreement and nods her head. She grabs for a cream gardenia that matches the accents in Nonou's kimono. "Yeah." She sticks her chubby fist out to give the flower to Nonou.

Nonou takes it, her gaze cutting from the flower to Haruko in a type of sharpened attention that contradicts the otherwise unbothered expression on her face. "Thank you."

"Welcome."

The makeup and kimono come out after this. Again, limited sets of makeup, though there is one kimono for each of them. Nonou gives them half an hour and tells them to dress how they would if they were going to an event with nobility present.

Haruko tosses on the kimono with a bit of care but doesn't worry over the exact details. She sees the other girls helping each other get them on, which Haruko assumes was the intent of giving them to kids who can't possibly get them on alone—see who flocks to help who, who seems to help everybody, who gets left out in the cold.

Nonou is making the most of the two hours she has with them.

Haruko decides to make herself up like the prostitutes she saw when she and Gai accidentally wandered into the wrong side of the village one day. With her abysmal skills the resemblance is pitiful, at best, but Haruko gets a kick out of the end result.

"Which lord are you hoping to impress with that look?" Nonou asks her.

"A rich one," Haruko answers.

"Rich lords tend to prefer proper ladies with a more subtle approach to makeup."

"Not if I'm a hooker." At Nonou's silence, Haruko says, "You didn't tells us we had to pretend to be nobility."

"Yes… I suppose I didn't."

Out of the corner of her eye, Haruko watches Nonou retreat from the table.

A timer up at the front dings once thirty minutes pass. Haruko's reflection in the mirror is equal parts clown, cheap prostitute, disaster whose power was out that morning and had to apply their makeup in the dark, and all hilarity. Haruko thinks it's perfect.

Now in their clothes and with their faces done up, Nonou turns on some music and lets the girls dance up in the middle of the room one by one.

This is where Haruko truly feels in her element.

She stands up in the middle of the circle and lets the rhythm of the music, the piano and the flute and the beats of silence, seep into her bones. Memories of standing in front of a crowd of thousands, center stage, lights on her and the same type of soft music at her back, engulf her mind. Haruko is certain she lost a few pieces of herself between her old body and this one, but her love of dance and music remained intact.

Haruko moves in an odd mishmash of what she remembers her body doing and what she's seen the women in this world do. It comes out a bit awkward and stilted with her young limbs, but that's to be expected. She'll train some grace into it yet.

Nonou dings a chime to mark the end of Haruko's time with the music. Haruko rights herself and gives a short bow to the other girls. Surprise is written over most of their faces.

"Thank you, Haruko," Nonou says. She checks her list. "Haruna, it's your turn."

When the music stops for good, Nonou ushers all of them together and helps get their makeup and kimonos off. It's a slow process that takes up the rest of their time in the class.

One of the other girls comes over to Haruko when they've been dismissed. She looks relatively normal, with a bit of a plain face and unassuming clothes. Brown eyes, brown hair pulled into two pigtails. She's the kind of girl who could walk into a crowd of people and disappear without any struggle.

"Hi," Haruko says to her.

"Uhm… hey." The girl scuffs her foot against the ground. "I thought your dancing was real cool."

"Thank you," Haruko says. She examines the girl a bit more closely. "That's a pretty necklace."

The girl reaches up and clasps a hand around the silver heart pendant. "Really?"

"Yeah. I like hearts."

That gets a toothy grin. "My name's Mari."

"Haruko."

"Cool. I gotta go, mom's here, but I'll see you tomorrow!"

Haruko waves goodbye to Mari and gathers her things.

The walk home from the Academy isn't long, and Haruko sees it as an opportunity to bask in the wonderful weather.

The sky is dimmed by clouds and a light shower falls around her. Rivulets of water trace the bare skin of her arms. The moisture creates a spotted pattern on her dress and gets between her toes, the water splashing up through her sandals anytime she steps in a puddle, which she goes out of her way to do.

The village streets are largely empty. People retreat into their homes at the first signs of rain. Without them, the only whispers Haruko hears are those of the rain making acquaintance with the ground.

Haruko loves rain. Rain brings with it life and renewal. It's a treat she normally only gets to experience during the spring, and she considers herself lucky for getting out of class in time to walk home in it. She misses it when it's gone, which is the majority of the year. Fire Country spends most of its time under the scorching reign of the sun.

She aimlessly wanders around the village for a couple of hours. Whatever catches her fancy she goes to explore, be it a new store opening or a cat scurrying along into an alley that Haruko decides she wants to pet.

She sees no reason to rush home because she already knows that an empty house is all that'll greet her when she returns. Gai and Dai are going to be training. They didn't say it, but it's an obvious thing, especially since Gai was pushed through into the Academy after failing the entrance exams.

It's not until Haruko realizes she's shivering that she walks the path that leads her back to the tiny house the three of them have shared for years. It's a charming thing. One floor. Painted all white along the outside with only two windows, both of which look out into the backyard instead of the front of the house, and some square-shaped brown panelling. There's no porch to speak of, just a three-foot-long stone path to the door that carves through the grass. It's the only house Haruko's ever had in this life.

Haruko walks in and sets her bag on the ground. She dries her feet on the mat and trades her sandals for slippers, but only for so long as it takes her to walk through the living room to the backyard. She wants to see her garden.

Most of their backyard is converted into her garden. She grows most anything in there, from vegetables to poisonous plants to flowers. The vegetables go in their meals, but the poisonous plants have about as much use as the flowers—sit there and look pretty. She might do something with them. One day. Until then, Dai, bless his soul, will continue to comment on the weeds scattered among her garden.

She checks over the garden. Some of the summer plants are beginning to go out of bloom and wither, but that's to be expected. She can't do anything to stop that, unless she learns how to dictate the change of the seasons, which, as far as she knows, isn't an ability one can have, not even in a world as extravagant as this. Satisfied, Haruko goes back inside and changes into dry clothes, a skirt and matching flowy blouse.

She gets a book and settles down on the couch in the living room to wait for her brother and father to come home.

Haruko often thinks that she couldn't have been reborn into a better family. They're an odd bunch, and for that reason, Haruko fits right in. When Haruko meets people unaccompanied by her family, some don't realize the relation at first—while she and Gai are twins, with an uncanny physical resemblance, she was named for her mother while Gai was named for their father. It was fitting in the end. Gai got their father's lack of skill with chakra control and Haruko got their mother's chakra prowess.

Dai trained Gai to follow his footsteps since they could walk. He trained with Haruko, when she wanted, but not in the way that he trained with Gai, and that was fine with Haruko. Taijutsu wasn't of any particular interest to her. Neither was ninjutsu, her mother's specialty. She liked genjutsu. It was hard for her to get her hands on books that talked about it, but she finangled her way into getting a couple. One of them is open in her lap.

It's an Academy text, given out to students in their final years of study, that goes into a bit of detail around the theory of genjutsu. Haruko can't understand half of what the text is saying but she likes reading it nonetheless.

Gai and Dai get home after dark.

Haruko ends up making dinner, a basic pork-fried rice with eggs on top. A pink stool stays in the kitchen for whenever Haruko cooks dinner, which is often, considering Dai isn't much of a cook and Gai spends more time at the training grounds than at home.

Dai raised them on a diet of takeout and rice. Haruko and Gai began to fix that as soon as possible, though the effort is more Haruko's than Gai's because Gai is an actual five-year-old who can't necessarily focus his mind or control his movements enough to cook a meal without disaster. Haruko herself isn't much of a cook, but in their house she's the best and so the meal responsibilities mostly fall on her shoulders.

She has it all set up on the table by the time they walk through the door. She hears the raucous laughter and the house's walls shake when the front door slams open.

Dai sees her and his face lights up. "Haruko! My dearest daughter!"

"Hi, dad," she says.

"Haruko! My dearest sister!"

"Hi, Gai."

Haruko wonders if there'll ever come a day where they don't greet each other this way.

Both of them run over and crush her in a hug. Dai falls to his knees and pulls her into his chest, and Gai comes around the back to wrap his arms around the both of them, his head on her shoulder. She's taller than him, always has been.

They both smell awful.

"Dinner's on the table," she says, her voice muffled.

"Dinner!" Gai cheers.

"Sustenance!" Dai cheers.

They both let her go and the smell blissfully disappears.

"Pork-fried rice—"

"With egg!" Dai cries. "What a wonderful, balanced meal! Full of protein!"

"Yes!"

She takes the empty seat at the table and tucks into her own plate. "The pot on the stove's full of it, too."

There's silence while Dai and Gai scarf down their first plate of food, and only once they've licked them clean and gotten a second serving does the conversation pick up.

"So, Haruko," Dai says. "How were your classes today?"

"Fun," she answers.

"Did you make friends?"

"One."

Dai grinned. "How wonderful!"

"Her name's Mari," Haruko says. "I met her during the kunoichi classes. She's in Gai's class, I think."

"Yes! Mari!" Gai says. "She's nice!"

"Yeah." Haruko pokes Gai with her bunny slippers. "How about you?"

What ostracization Haruko experiences is less severe than what Gai gets from the people around him, she knows that. Gai dresses like their father. Gai fights like their father. Gai _acts_ like their father. It's inevitable that Gai gets the brunt of the disdain that the village feels for their father.

"Ah. My day was fine."

"Did you talk to that white-haired boy?"

"Kakashi, my rival," Gai says. He nods. His expression is now fully serious, as it always goes whenever the topic of Kakashi comes up. "Yes."

"What happened?"

Gai taps his chin thoughtfully. "I challenged him to a match of kunai throwing again. He declined."

Dai claps a hand down against the table. Before his palm can make contact, Haruko lifts up her bowl to avoid having the contents spilled all over her lap. Gai isn't as lucky—not that he notices, his attention pinned to their father. "You must be persistent!"

"I am!"

"Yes! One day, he will accept your challenge, and you can prove yourself to him!"

"I will!"

Haruko takes a bite of her rice. "Or you could lull him into a false sense of security by not saying anything to him for the next week. That way, when you challenge him again, he won't be expecting it and he might accept out of sheer surprise."

Dai and Gai stare at her. Haruko shrugs.

"Never!" Gai says. He slams a fist down on the table. "I will make him agree, fair and square!"

"Suit yourself."

"Yes, that is the way my son!"

They finish up dinner and Haruko does the dishes. Dai and Gai offer to help, as they always do, but one too many dishes have become casualties to their over excitement and if she let them help each time they offered, they'd be replacing the dishes every few weeks.

The evening is the only time their household falls into any semblance of calm. They sit down and do their bookwork, and Dai helps where he can. When the homework is done Gai and Dai take up another round of exercises in the living room while Haruko reads, sews, or lays on her back and stares up at the ceiling, pondering her existence as an insignificant speck in an ocean of stars. On nice nights she'll go out for a walk.

Haruko walks over to a safe place in the living room, on a rug and out of the way of Gai and Dai, and lays down on her back. Their ceiling is made of the same wood as the rest of the house. She can hear the rain above pound against it.

Nice nights.

Tonight is a nice night.

Haruko picks herself up off of the ground and walks over to the door.

"Where… are you… going?" Dai asks her between pushups.

"Out. Gonna go for a walk."

"Exercise!" Dai cries. "Wondrous!"

"Uh huh. Back in a bit."

Haruko grabs her cat umbrella from beside the door and goes out on an adventure. She doesn't bother with shoes. She wants to feel the water, cold and fresh, on the soles of her feet with each step she takes through the village.

The moon shines through a black sky. Bright, reflected in the puddles on the ground that dip and shake with the force of raindrops falling into them. The air is crisp.

Haruko twirls the umbrella as she walks the village streets. She heads towards one of the parks by their house and hums under her breath. The beat of it matches the pace of her gait. She prances along, adds in skips and twirls, her pleated purple skirt swishing around at all of the movement. What few people are out take the time to stop and stare at her as she passes. She gives them a smile for their trouble.

A bridge that crawls over a gentle river is her ultimate destination, hidden in the depths of the park. Haruko comes here a lot. It's a comfortable place. Not a lot of people know it exists. She hops up onto the railing and kicks her heels against it, eyes on the river. Haruko drops the umbrella down onto the bridge behind her.

The rain pitters against her skin and her hair and her soul.

Sometimes, when the world around her doesn't seem quite so real, the feel of water on her skin is all that can remind her that she's alive.


	2. Humpty Dumpty

.

* * *

 _Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,_

 _Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,_

 _All the king's horses and all the king's men,_

 _Couldn't put Humpty together again._

* * *

Haruko finds the village is an interesting place when it's gearing up for war.

Most don't know it, plodding along in their everyday lives without a care in the world, but the shifts are there. When she looks down at the markets she sees less foreign sellers in their extravagant clothes with their fancy wares and more in-village business. She sees higher shipments of grain and rice, along with a few other choice essentials, slipping through their gates. Iron is more plentiful, as are the ninja products made with it. She sees more and more ninja coming into the village and staying there.

She wonders how these people manage to make it through life with a blindfold on, and how many are holding a hand over their eyes in a mock attempt to shield themselves while they peek from between their fingers at the impending disaster.

Then again, she does understand on some level. Those who are civilian and have reason to _benefit_ from the war see the situation in a different light than she does. Smithies and tailors who deal in ninja gear view a war as nothing but an easy way to increase their business, a new and potent demand arising for their products. The only time they feel the danger is if an enemy attacks the village itself, and with the walls around Konoha, the chances of that happening are slim to none, not worth fretting over. So long as they appear patriotic at the right time and nod and smile, they have no reason to worry.

What a simple existence. Comfortable. Who can blame them?

"Hey, kid!"

Haruko looks down at the voice. It's a middle-aged man with a head of salt-and-pepper hair and wrinkles etched throughout his face, stubble dotted along the lower half of his chin; he has a face that Haruko thinks has seen a lot of life. A smith's apron adorns his torso, a hammer and worn leather gloves hanging from the front pocket.

Her bare heels stop bumping against the walls of the armoury and she leans forward off of the roof to get a better look at the street below. "Yes?"

"What're you _doin_ ' up there?"

"It's a nice view," Haruko says. "I wanted a look."

"How did you even get up there?"

"I walked."

He mutters something under his breath and stares at Haruko with something akin to dumbfounded exasperation. "Get down?"

"I'd rather not, thank you."

"I wasn't asking!"

"Your inflection says otherwise."

"My inflection—no, _get off my shop_."

Haruko presses the soles of her feet down onto the front wall of the shop and adds a bit of chakra to them. Secured to the wall, she walks down—nearby folks shield their eyes when her skirt flutters up and a flash of her pastel pink underwear is shown to the world.

 _Might as well give them a real reason to cover their eyes._

Walking up and down walls is a trick she picked up soon after Dai introduced them to chakra. He didn't say much about it, but a day trip to the library was all it took for Haruko to get a grasp on the basics of how it functions, both in and out of the body. The stuff is a bit like gold—highly malleable and extremely valuable.

"Damn ninja brats," the man mumbles to himself, eyes down. "Ain't raised right."

"My father raised me just fine, I think."

"Sure you were, flashin' the whole street like that. Didn't anybody teach you decency, girl?"

Haruko smiles her sweetest smile at him and clasps her hands together, a perfect picture of innocent little girl.

Silence stretches.

The man's standoffish expression and posture begin to waver. She considers answering, but the way he squirms under her unblinking stare holds her tongue—no reason to spoil that. She doubts anything she can say will have quite the same effect.

"Ah—Harukooo!"

Haruko turns over her shoulder and sees Gai running full-tilt towards her. She braces herself.

Gai crashes into her with the force of a charging elephant. He crushes her against his chest in a hug, lifting her feet off the ground, and spins her around in circles.

Haruko waits until he sets her down before she says, "Hi, Gai."

"Dad said not to run off like that!"

"I didn't run," Haruko says. "I walked."

The man squints at them. She can see him putting the pieces together, an easy feat with Gai on the scene. "You're _his_ daughter, then. Shoulda known. Guess I had it, then—you _weren't_ raised right."

"A grown man who thinks it's acceptable to mock children has no right to criticize the quality of another's upbringing."

His eyes widen and his posture opens for a second, taken aback, before everything closes right up and he brings himself to his full height. _Oh_. She seems to have hit a nerve with that one.

Gai stiffens at her side.

"I think she's got you there."

As one, Haruko and Gai turn to look over their shoulder, and see a teenager standing behind them, his hands in his pockets and a well-crafted smile on his face. Haruko assumes it's false, from the circumstances, but the smile and the accompanying posture are both a flawless imitation of casualness.

The teenager's headband is buried beneath a shock of blonde hair and he wears a flak jacket over jonin blues, an outfit that commands respect. Not even the brashest ninja-hating civilian would disrespect a jonin in uniform.

A flush claws up the man's neck and scratches his skin crimson. "I never intended it like that."

"Of course you didn't," the teenager says, still all smiles. "But I still think you owe these kids an apology, eh?"

 _I feel like I should be taking notes._

The man turns to them and with unveiled disgust, bows. It's not convincing in the slightest, but it is entertaining when compared to the perfect mask of the teenager one fourths his age standing at her shoulder. Mediocre versus exceptional. A teenager who couldn't be more than fourteen beating out a man in his forties with ease. Damn ninja brats, indeed.

Haruko stands on the tips of her toes and starts to examine the crowd around them.

Gai pokes her on the arm. He leans forward to her ear and whispers in a voice loud enough for all gathered to hear, "What're you doing?"

"Waiting to see if somebody else wants to interrupt this conversation," she answers. "It feels rude to leave without giving them the chance to."

Gai gives her a perplexed look. In return, Haruko pats him on the cheek.

Satisfied that nobody else is making their way towards them, she grabs for Gai's hand. Her eyes, a pair of polished bronze buttons set in porcelain, glance over to the shopkeeper. He's bright red.

"Glass is a terrible material to build a house out of," she says.

The weight of two sets of eyes tickle the nape of her neck as she leads Gai away.

* * *

Nonou claps her hands at the front of the room and the cacophony of giggling and improperly played instruments clatters to a halt.

Haruko looks up from the drum in her lap. Mari, on the floor beside her, startles, and drops the wooden sticks she was trying to use to play her massive drum.

A wide range of traditional instruments are scattered around the room. Shamisen, various drums, flutes. None of them are in the hands of people who can play them but that didn't stop any of the girls from attempting it, or cheering when they managed to get one butchered note out of their instrument.

Nonou has on a traditional kimono, as usual, but today's is a light purple colour with flowers smattered along the bottom half of it. She has her hair pulled into an updo, a butterfly comb holding it in place. "It's time to move into the last portion of today's class," she says. "Please put away your instrument and prepare for a dance lesson."

Classes are two and a half months in and at this point, Haruko knows that the kunoichi classes are going to be her favourite part of the week for as long as she's a student at the Academy.

Their regular classes are useful. Chakra theory, basic mathematical and scientific knowledge, and everything in between. She can think of worse ways to spend her time than sitting in a desk and having the information thrown at her, but there's nothing subtle about it all. All of the information has a clear purpose behind it: improve their ability to function as ninja. Mathematics are taught with word problems centered around throwing weapons, sciences the parts of the body they'll learn to target later down the line. Chakra theory is there for future jutsu use.

Kunoichi classes, on the other hand, are run with more finesse. The classes are social and hands on, letting the girls stay engaged and entertained for the entire period. The lesson plans aren't structured in a traditional sense. They don't know what they'll go over when they walk into most of their classes unless Nonou gives them homework. Each class itself has a clear purpose, but it tends to be more based around specific situations they might find themselves in rather than theory.

The kunoichi classes also win bonus points with Haruko because almost all of them involve a dance portion.

They spent the first half of their lesson playing around with the instruments and going over a bit of history around traditional tea ceremonies. Now, Nonou pulls out the usual makeup and kimono, as she always does before the dance portion of the lesson, and explains that she's going to show them what a geisha dance performance might look like.

The instruments were shamisen, taiko, tsuzumi, and bamboo flutes. While Nonou hands out the usual boxes of makeup, Haruko can see the pots of bright red lipstick and the pink and red eyeshadow—there's no foundation or powder to avoid disaster, but Haruko assumes that they'll get a chance with it at some point. Each box also has a few extravagant hair pieces typical of maiko. The kimono, as well, all have the vibrant and bright patterns seen with maiko.

The whole lesson is arranged around a situation where one of them might be working undercover as a geisha, specifically maiko. The role of maiko involves the heavier makeup, ideal for keeping an identity under wraps, but also better suits their age range as most achieve the rank of geisha around twenty. They get a chance to familiarize themselves with the instruments they'd be expected to play, the makeup and kimono they'd be expected to wear, and now the dance they'd be expected to do _wearing_ a kimono, which is an experience in and of itself.

It's all rather ingenious.

Nonou makes her rounds, smiling at each girl, telling her how beautiful she looks, and dropping in minor hints and tips between the compliments.

"I don't think that's right," Mari says.

Haruko adds another layer of red lipstick to her wildly overdrawn lips. "It's not."

Her inspiration this time around is full circus clown.

Red all over her lips, red all over her eyelids, red in her eyebrows, and red smeared on her cheeks in circles. She paints her nose pink with the eyeshadow for that nice pop of colour. She contemplates trying to create some kind of puffy hairdo as the cherry on top, but realizes that there's no way she'll be able to manage it and settles for a giant bun on the top of her head.

Nonou comes to their table next. From the look on her face when she sees Haruko, it seems she expects nothing less. "A bold look as always, Haruko," Nonou says. "What's the intent this time?"

"Red," Haruko says.

"So I see."

Mari gives Haruko a sceptical look. "Where would ya wear that?"

"Somewhere dark."

Nonou lets out a tiny, near inaudible laugh.

"But then what's the point?" Mari asks. "That took you like… like… a long time!"

"There is no point," Haruko says. "There only is."

"You never make sense…" Mari murmurs.

"Does anything make sense? What is sense? Can you prove that my sense is the same as your sense?"

Mari goes back to her makeup and ignores Haruko with a level of attitude that only a five year old can pull off.

Haruko can't wait for the day when her peers are old enough to understand existential humor.

For now, she has to settle for Nonou, whose reactions are unpredictable. Sometimes she laughs, sometimes she watches Haruko as if not quite believing what she's hearing. It's fine. Haruko finds herself funny enough to make up for the lack of reaction from the people around her, and often, their confusion mollifies her as much as a laugh would.

When all of the girls are dressed and painted the desks are pushed up against the sides of the classroom.

The movements in a geisha routine are precise and controlled. They tell a story. The roots of the dances are set in old folk tales civilians used to spread amongst themselves, a form of history that ninja don't have a comparison for—there are dances out there that are hundreds of years old when some clans struggle to trace their heritage far past the formation of the villages. Haruko can appreciate them for what they are, even if she doesn't find them enjoyable.

She remembers dance as leaping through the air. When her mind flashes her back Haruko hears vibrant, active music, with violins and pianos, entwined with the flow of her body across the stage. She feels emotion. Everything was emotion. The dance was there to put into actions what words can't express.

Haruko remembers it all so vividly.

She tells herself it happened. She didn't imagine it all. She couldn't have. The human mind is capable of great feats but not of creating something so incredible, so visceral, that the mere thought of dance is enough to make her whole body tingle an entire life later.

It doesn't always help.

Some days, it helps too much, and she's left wondering if those memories are her truth and the things she sees around her today are the lies.

Haruko blows out a breath and snaps herself into focus as the music fades away.

She's here.

Nonou runs through the routine again, but this time she stops on each movement to explain the form and give a bit of insight into the story behind the dance. The dance was a fairytale, about a tiny baby girl found in a stock of bamboo who was born of the moon.

When the class is over, Nonou pulls Haruko aside. "I was wondering if you were interested in additional lessons," Nonou tells her. "You show a high interest in the material covered, and a lot of potential to be a great infiltrator one day."

"Okay."

Nonou raises an eyebrow. "You're not going to ask for more information?"

"No," Haruko says. "I don't need anymore."

She doesn't know if she'll end up in infiltration when she graduates from the Academy, but the idea of getting more lessons is worth her while regardless.

Nounou gives her a date, a time, and sends Haruko on her way.

She finds Gai waiting for her outside of the classroom, on the ground doing a set of pushups.

"Dad's on a mission?" she asks.

"Yes! He said he'd be home in a few days!"

It's uncommon for Dai to get called out of the village for missions. Most of the times it happens are for minor courier missions, something with a low security clearance but high distance to travel that chunin and jonin-sensei didn't want to waste their time with. Dai always brings them home a trinket from the civilian villages he visits along the way.

Gai leaps up and grabs for Haruko's hand. Before she can go anywhere, he starts to drag her in the direction of the house.

"Wait," she says, digging in her heels. "I wanted to go to the river."

"Dad said to go straight home when he's out of the village."

"Please?"

"No!"

"Pretty please?"

"I will not concede!" Gai cries.

Haruko loses that one—when their father tells Gai something, he listens, and Haruko has no hope of trumping Dai. Her wistful gaze remains locked in the direction of the river. She'll just have to go after dark, once Gai tucks in for his nine hours of beauty sleep.

They're halfway home when Haruko's reminded of the one thing that manages to beat out their father, and that memory jogger comes in the form of Gai bolting forward with the cry of, "Eternal Rival!"

Haruko has no choice but to let herself be dragged forward by her brother. She's at his mercy until he lets go of her hand.

She gets a glance at the white-haired boy and a half second to realize she can't stop, then she's being catapulted forward into something solid and then she's on the ground—no, the thing under her is soft, that's not dirt—and disoriented. Something shifts under her and she feels her back hit something hard. This time, she _knows_ it's the ground.

"Eternal Rival!" she hears Gai say.

"I didn't agree to this," another voice answers, high pitched and childish.

Haruko rubs her eyes and blinks.

Gai stands, his legs spread in a solid stance, and one arm is jut outward to point at the white haired boy while the other rests on his hip. His eyes are wide and determined, both his eyebrows in a downset line. The white haired boy looks unimpressed.

"I challenge you to… to…" Gai trails off. His posture deflates and he looks around, hurried. His eyes land on a food stand. Gai puffs all the way back up and shouts, "An eating competition!"

"No."

"What? Why?"

"Eating a lot isn't a skill."

"Of course it is!"

"There's no value in it," the boy says. "Nothing worth proving." He turns on his heel and goes to walk away.

If the boy accepts Gai's challenge, Gai will be distracted. If Gai's distracted, Haruko can sneak away and go dip her toes in the river. He won't be held off for long but a couple of minutes now is better than nothing—she can go _later_ , as well.

"Being able to eat a lot in one sitting shows a great control over one's body," Haruko says. She doesn't raise her voice from its usual soft, delicate lilts to catch him, but he still hears and stops. "Mind over matter, like pushing one's body to the limit during a training session."

The boy turns back around to face them. His steel-grey eyes are narrow.

"Yes!" Gai says. "That's exactly it!"

"Fine. Just this once," the boy says. "Then will you leave me alone?"

Gai sprints over to the food stand without giving an answer. The boy follows, body drawn taut with annoyance.

And Haruko leaves her shoes in the middle of the road and takes off towards the river.

* * *

"I think she would do well in a higher level class."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. Her bookwork is exceptional. She does very well in all of her studies, and her physical scores are above average, though not the top of her class. Still, I'd suggest bumping her up a grade to see whether it's a better fit for her."

Mr. Fukui gestures at a grade sheet. Dai leans forward, one hand stroking his goatee. The expression of intense concentration on his face is cartoonish—even in his more serious states, their father never fails to be a colourful individual.

Haruko watches clouds roll by through the classroom window while the conversation plays out. Gai sits in the desk beside her, jittering in his seat. He keeps glancing between Haruko and their father; he's nervous. Haruko half expects him to break into a spontaneous workout session.

"I must admit, this comes as a bit of a surprise," Dai says. He leans back in his seat. "Finding out that not one, but _both_ of my children are recommended for grade advancement."

"You have two bright ninja on your hands," Mr. Fukui says. "You've done well with them."

Dai gives him a blinding smile.

Haruko wonders whether Mr. Fukui means that, or if he's saying that to make her father more favourable to the Academy's agenda. She's not complaining either way. She wants to be placed in a higher grade range and a lie is worth seeing that kind of smile on her father's face.

"I am lucky to have them," Dai says. His voice is soft. "They are good children."

Mr. Fukui nods. "So you agree to this, then?"

Dai hesitates. His eyes flit back to look at them. "I… think I must discuss this with them first."

"Yes, of course," Mr. Fukui says. "But I encourage you to decide sooner rather than later. If you wish to do this, it's easier to move quickly to help them adjust."

"I understand."

.

.

Haruko traces her finger along Gai's palm. The skin is an odd mixture of baby softness and rough calluses. He wiggles beneath her touch, but she holds him by the wrist with her free-hand to keep him steady.

They sit across from each other on the floor of the living room. It's later in the evening, the windows showing nothing but black, and the two of them are alone while Dai runs to get some takeout for dinner.

She holds his right hand because it's his dominant one. "This is your head line," Haruko says, her finger moving down a line that bisects the skin between his thumb and index finger. It stretches straight towards his pinky and peters out near the middle of his palm, curling down at the end. "A short line."

Gai gasps. "Is that bad?"

"No," she says. "You're a fast thinker. Determined. You don't flip-flop when making a decision."

"Oh." His whole face brightens. "Yes!"

Haruko hums. She moves her finger down to the second line. "This is your life line," she says. It starts in the same place as the head line, but it curves out once it gets to the middle of his palm and reaches down toward his wrist. "It's long and curved, and easy to see. You're steady and stay strong in tough situations."

The grin on her brother's face warms Haruko from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. He's an easy person. Easy to entertain, easy to get along with. Easy to love. She wonders if she ever loved somebody the way she loves Gai and her father. Even at such a simple thing like this, reading his palm with information she got from a book on the street a few days ago, he looks at her with awe, like she's plucked a star from the sky and laid it flat on his palm.

"What's the third one?" he asks, bouncing up and down beneath her grip

Her finger goes up and winds along a line that goes from the base of his index finger, expands into an arch towards the middle of his palm, and ends at the base of his middle finger. "Your heart line," she says. "Long and curved. You're passionate and proud of it."

"Yes!" Gai shouts. He has a giddy, eager energy about him, and he leans forward so that his nose is just a few inches from hers. "What about you?"

Haruko lets go of his hand and smiles. "Can you pass me my book?"

"Haruko!"

"It's behind you," she says. "On the couch."

"Please?"

Haruko reaches behind him and grabs it herself. Gai whines. She flops onto her back and stares at the open book. Gai follows her down, laying on his stomach beside her.

"Haruko, Haruko, Haruko—"

She taps the tip of his nose. "It's unlucky to read your own palm."

Gai freezes. "Ah! Okay!" he says. He rolls onto his back and lays shoulder-to-shoulder with Haruko. She can see a determined look on his face. "I won't ask anymore!"

Haruko knows what's on her palm.

Her head line stretches to the middle of her palm and splits into two. She's of two minds, shifting worldviews, always seeing from multiple perspectives.

Her life line is like shattered glass pressed into her skin, a jagged, broken line. A sign of past traumas that continue to impact her.

Her heart line is uneven, with other lines slashing through it at multiple intervals to create a mess of x's. A sign of great personal betrayal in her past.

Her body remembers what her mind forgets.

Haruko imagines that at one point or another, she did love somebody as much as she does Gai and Dai, but those fragments are lost from the mosaic of her memories. She doesn't see that as a bad thing; she's glad she can't remember enough to say one way or another. Not all questions in this world require an answer.

Dai slams the door open and the smell of barbeque wafts into the house.

Haruko lets the book fall onto her chest and turns her head to look over at Dai. He's got a tower of takeout boxes balanced in his arms. "My dearest daughter! My dearest son!"

"Hi, dad."

"Dad!"

The obligatory group hug ensues, with Haruko and Gai taking care to avoid knocking over the food boxes.

They help get the food into the kitchen and dole it out, Gai and Dai taking their massive family-sized piles of food while Haruko takes a respectable but humane amount. They gather at their table, silent, until Dai clears his throat.

"I suppose we must talk about this school business," Dai says.

"I want to move up a grade."

Right away, Gai nods. "Mhi whant gfho uff—" Haruko reaches under the table and pokes Gai's knee with her big toe. Gai swallows. "I want to go up a grade too!"

Dai knits his eyebrows together. "Are you certain?"

"Yeah," Haruko says.

"Yes," Gai says. He gets starry eyed. "I must catch up to my Eternal Rival."

"Then it's settled!" Dai cries. He holds a piece of pork with his chopsticks and raises it up towards the ceiling. Bits of barbeque sauce splatter to the table. "To success!"

Gai copies his movements. "To success!"

They both wait, arms raised, for a solid minute until Haruko grabs some broccoli and lifts her arm up too, though she doesn't say anything. The boys cheer.

Haruko can't help but smile as she takes a bite from her broccoli.

 _I don't need to remember anybody but them._


	3. For Want of a Nail

.

* * *

 _For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost,_

 _For want of a horse the rider was lost, for want of a rider the battle was lost,_

 _For want of a battle the kingdom was lost, and all for the want of a horseshoe nail._

* * *

On a soft blue picnic blanket, spread out over the grass and covered in books, Haruko lays on her back to stare up at the sky. The day is cold but dry and sunny, the sky so bright that it might trick any unsuspecting victim into thinking that it's still summer even as they enter the early days of December.

They're in an empty park. The swing sets rock around on the breeze, empty, and half-built structures sag to dust in the sand box. Haruko's there with Gai and the white-haired boy, the rest of the usual inhabitants chased inside by the nip in the air, but Haruko pretends it's just her and the sky alone to their conversation.

The clouds speak to her when she takes the time to listen.

They whisper the twists and turns of her foreseeable future, scattered through the sky as words hidden in the curls of white vapour puffs and the chime of the wind. She'll try something new today, she'll meet somebody new tomorrow. Her studies will take an interesting direction. Tragedy will strike earlier than she expects.

"Leave me alone."

"I shall not! I have lost our challenge, but I am determined to achieve my first victory!"

"The score is already three to zero. Learn to give up."

"No!"

Haruko wishes she could get more from the clouds than vague allusions to events, but she supposes that beggars can't be choosers, and she's lucky they tell her anything in the first place. They're a silent force to most. Some days, they're silent to her too. She'll spend all day watching them stroll on with their lives and not get a peep from them.

Today is a good day. They've been chatty with Haruko.

"The river! We shall swim, and the fastest—"

" _Quit it_."

"Never! I do not quit! I am not capable of quitting!"

"Fine. Bye."

"Wait!"

"Nu-uh."

"I must challenge you!"

"Give it up. You're a zero."

All the clouds give her today are cheerful messages. They tell her that a brush with new and interesting knowledge is in her future.

Haruko hopes they mean her lessons with Nonou—those have been going on for a month and each one is as interesting and enjoyable as the first. It started basic, with the same kinds of things they covered in classes, but it expanded to include other things like deep history dives and chakra practice and genjutsu theory. Fascinating stuff.

"I am… I'm… I'm not a zero! I'm a good ninja! I'm doing third-year classes!"

"I'm in a fourth-year class."

Haruko finds that the longer she attends the lessons, the more appealing infiltration works becomes to her as a career path. Play dress up and dance for a career? Sign her up. She can slip on the roles as easily as she applies the makeup, another thing Nonou finally started advising her on.

"Well, I am… I'm…"

"You're wasting your time. It's simple: I'm better than you, and there's no reason to act otherwise."

"That cannot—"

"Just focus on yourself and leave me alone."

She appreciates the stimulation her lessons with Nonou give her. Her other classwork is unentertaining. She was moved up to a third-year class, but she keeps bringing home grades as high as she always has. She doubts they'll keep her there for long.

Haruko hears somebody sit down next to her, and the cloud's chiming dialogue goes silent in her head. She sits up. Gai is slouched beside her, his face drawn in a disappointed pout, and that's all Haruko needs to make a conclusion about the interaction between him and the white-haired boy even though she tuned the conversation out.

She pats him on the shoulder.

Gai tries for a grin, but it's a flickering flashlight compared to the usual blinding brilliance. "I will have to try again," he says. "Next time."

"Always a next time," Haruko says.

He nods. The grin falls away completely. "He said I'm a zero," Gai mumbles. "But I'm not."

"How silly of him. You can't be a number—you're a person. This universe doesn't work like that."

She can't discount _other_ universes, because one can never speak in definites when discussing an infinite concept, but she's certain that where she currently lives and breathes, it's not possible to be a number and a person.

Gai laughs, and it sounds more like what she's used to. "Yes! Right!"

Haruko stands and brushes off her skirt. "We need sweets."

"Sweets? But, a ninja must eat—"

"Sweets, Gai. We need sweets."

Any situation can be improved by the addition of sweets. Sweets will make him feel better and help bring the wattage back to his smile, regardless of his protest. A wicked sweet tooth runs through the Maito family.

Haruko grabs the corners of her blanket and hauls it over her shoulder. All of the books slide down to the center. With her free hand, she twines her fingers with Gai and pulls him off in the direction of her favourite bakery.

* * *

The sky cries to mourn the departure of Konoha ninja when the first batch are shipped off to the frontlines.

The world may end with a whimper, but the war started with a bang. A failed mission sparked off the inferno and the village burned one of its heroes over the flames. Unsurprising, given the village's history of fickleness, which Haruko knows all too well—the people of Konoha aren't kind to outsiders, and especially not the ones born within their very walls.

It's funny to her. She mistook the civilians as the blind ones, and yet when it comes to the topic of Sakumo Hatake, the bitterest words are from the mouth of his fellow ninja. They blame him for their mobilization. Did none of them see the other signs? Did none of them realize this war has been long coming, that it's too big for one ninja to cause on his own? Some must, and instead choose to ignore it for the sake of having something to blame.

Haruko watches them trek out from a nearby rooftop, clustered up in squads as they're waved through by the guard chunin one group at a time. She studies them through the blanket of rain obscuring her vision. Their faces are grim. In some, she sees resentment buried beneath the surface.

The life of a ninja. Nasty, brutish, short.

How unfortunate that is.

But then, what difference does it make in the end? The cycle continues. Live one life, die, be born again. Haruko finds that the idea of death doesn't scare her anymore.

She watches them march off to their ends and knows she'll share that fate one day.

Haruko hums to herself and treasures the frosty chill of rain beating against her bare skin. She'll die one day and be born again. That's okay.

 _Is the rain always this cold?_

It's okay. She accepts her fate.

 _It's almost painful._

* * *

Haruko is out in her garden, safe beneath the canopy tent Dai installed before he was pulled away from the village for gopher duty on the front lines, when Gai charges out onto the porch and grabs her wrist. She has enough time to drop the dirt and hoe in her hands, then he's dragging her out their front door.

"Eternal Rival!"

"My violets…"

"Rival!"

Haruko leaves a trail of soil in her wake. It's all over her hands and her knees, stains her dress. Bits of it even managed to wriggle into her sandals and squish under the sole of her foot with each step she takes through the village streets.

People stare at them as they fly by, a dirty girl in a dress not suited for the weather and a boy in a bright green leotard just like _that_ man. Less people do it than they used to, though. The incident with Sakumo Hatake takes up most of their ire. She and Gai and Dai were demoted to afterthought status, no longer worth the effort it takes their tiny brains to be disgusted or disdainful.

It's the third time this week that Gai's pulled her on an adventure. Gai likes to bring her along whenever he goes on the hunt for his rival—she never knows when he's going to grab her hand and drag her all over the village.

He wants to keep the white-haired boy company, but he's not allowed to leave Haruko alone when Dai isn't home. Thus, dragging her along is the obvious solution.

The upside is that the white-haired boy is in the same place each time they go after him.

The training grounds. Ground fifteen. The back corner, standing in front of the training dummies and throwing kunai straight into the eyes. Not a soul dares get within a few feet of him.

That is, except Gai. He drags them right up to the boy and shouts, "Eternal Rival!"

The boy doesn't turn from his task or do anything to acknowledge their presence. Not intentionally, at least—Haruko can see the additional force the boy's weapons begin to land with.

"I challenge you!"

Two more kunai thunk into the straw.

"Ah! I know! I will join you!"

Haruko looks at his waist and sees a pouch of training kunai. Gai doesn't wear kunai, nor does he use them.

Without waiting for an answer, Gai strides over and takes up a spot beside the boy. He starts chucking his kunai. One by one, they hit the dummy, but they miss the vital points Academy teachers advise them to aim for.

Two minutes pass when the boy gathers his kunai and stalks off into the forest behind the dummies. Longer than last time by a handful of seconds. The look Gai gives her when the boy leaves reminds Haruko of a kicked puppy, wet-eyed and devastated.

Gai says he's hunting after his rival to make sure the boy's okay. Gai worries. The village is cruel, the boy is hard on himself. Haruko wonders if Dai's absence plays a role in it, too.

Haruko walks past Gai and into the forest.

She hears the kunai burying themselves into bark and follows the noise. It leads her all the way to the boy, where he stands, the same posture, same position, throwing weapons at the trees like his life depends on it.

The boy glares at her as soon as she reaches him. He turns, ready to walk away, to flee.

"What's your name?" she asks.

He freezes. "What?"

"Your name. I don't know it. Gai just calls you 'Eternal Rival', but I don't think that's your name. That'd be a terrible name."

Haruko has a bit of a tougher time reading the boy with his mask on, but she can see the signs of scepticism in the way his eyes narrow and the skin around his temples tightens. "How can you not know my name?"

"Well, I've never asked, and you've never told me."

"Everybody in this village knows my name, thanks to _him_."

"I don't."

He doesn't seem to want to answer. The heat in his gaze doesn't die away, as if he's trying to make her cower and flee, or spontaneously combust. Haruko has no problem holding it and waiting him out.

"Kakashi," the boy spits out. "Kakashi Hatake. That's my name."

"Nice to meet you."

Kakashi holds himself like a kitten Haruko once found in the red light district alleys. Hissing and clawing, his hackles raised as if he's ready to strike at any moment, but there's an underlying note of fear that coats every one of his actions and takes the menace from him. He's piteous, not intimidating.

"Don't you hate me?" he asks. "Don't you hate my dad?"

"Why would I?"

"He started a war!"

"Nonsense," she says. "One man doesn't start a war. If a fish makes a fuss in the ocean, you don't blame it when a tsunami rolls in."

"But… _everybody_ hates my dad. He—he broke the rules!"

She can see the cracks begin to form. Hairline fractures in the mask, and nothing but more anger seeps out like an infected wound leaking pus.

"Everybody doesn't matter. Most of them are idiots."

His hands, the only things about him that appear childlike anymore, clench into fists at his sides. "I hate him too."

Kakashi's weapon pouches are strapped to his thighs. They're open and stocked and well within the reach of his fingers, throwable at a second's notice.

Haruko tilts her head. "Then you're an idiot for letting yourself be influenced like that."

The kunai comes at her fast and true. She pivots out of the way, the action pirouette-like. The weapon whistles on its way past her ear, a flash of silver in the corner of her eye, close but not close enough. It was a throw aimed to land right where he'd been throwing them at the dummies earlier.

 _How rude._

When she looks back to where Kakashi was standing, she sees air. He's not gone. She's confident that he's too prideful to abandon her entirely—he would want to chase her off, to force her out of the conversation and discount what she said. Fleeing would be the same as accepting defeat.

"The people in this village are terrible judges of character," she says. She knows he can hear her. "They call my dad lazy for having never made it past genin, but he's the hardest worker I know. He does everything he can for this village. If I listened to them, I'd hate him. But I really love my dad."

She can't imagine how jarring the flip in village opinion was for him. The prodigious child, flying through the Academy, flawless at whatever task he sets his mind to. He doesn't talk back to teachers. He does all his homework.

Scorn followed Haruko since the day she was born. It doesn't faze her anymore. But Kakashi has both sides of the coin in his mind—from awed words to cruel whispers, from people falling at the feet of his legendary father to spitting on his shoes.

She feels bad for him.

Haruko heads back out of the forest the way she came. At the last minute, she says over her shoulder, "You've got two good eyes. Don't be afraid to use them."

* * *

"One, and two, and three, and four…"

Each count is punctuated by a clap from Nonou. Haruko reacts to them, her feet and arms moving in tandem with the sound.

The dance is more like what Haruko remembers performing, active and fast movements with the same attention to grace as the geisha dance and none of the drama that tinges her memories. Nonou says it's a style of dance designed for festivals. Fast drum beats and flutes, cowbells ringing in the background. It's casual and meant to be performed for fun with a crowd of people, marching up and down the streets. Her arms move the most, and Nonou has her walking in a circle around the room.

Her attention is split. She navigates the room, keeps from trampling all over the hem of her kimono, holds her time with the music. It's enough to keep Haruko grounded in reality while she dances.

They're in Nonou's living room.

It's the only available space, since the room used for kunoichi classes isn't open outside of set times and Academy classrooms are ill-suited for this kind of activity. The apartment is roomier than Haruko expected. A large, open floorplan, popular with paranoid shinobi who like to be able to see everything from anywhere in the room. The furniture is minimalistic.

Haruko wonders what kind of activities Nonou does—or did—to afford a place like this. Nonou works at the Academy for kunoichi classes, but the work she does at the village's hospital and the orphanage is unpaid because she's a volunteer. Haruko knows infiltration pays well, but not this well.

Her running theory is that Nonou was a prostitute for a time, whether that was working as a civilian escort or doing the ninja equivalent of seduction missions, both of which she imagines come with impressive pay grades. Nonou looks innocent in her kimono and well-done hair. Haruko isn't buying it for a _second_.

The music cuts and Nonou goes silent. Haruko stops, eyes drawn to Nonou.

"That'll be all for today, I think." Nonou pats the cushion next to her, smiling. "Come."

Nerves alight and prickling with each step she takes, Haruko walks over to the couch and, with a bit of extra effort, manages to get onto it in the tight-fitted kimono. She sinks into the plain grey fabric of the couch.

Nonou turns to face her, the movement effortlessly delicate and graceful in the way everything she does is, like her body's an illusion and she's not a person but a breeze of air blowing through life. "You've been doing very well," she says. "You far exceed my expectations in nearly all fields." A small smile. "Especially with your makeup skills."

"Thank you."

Nonou dips her chin in a nod. "You're welcome. Now, I think it's time I start you on some more advanced materials." She stands up and goes over to her bookshelf. The top half of it has books, the bottom half scrolls, and Nonou bends down to get at one of the lowest shelves. She takes a short glance at the scroll. Satisfied, Nonou returns and hands it to Haruko. "Here. I want you to start practicing with visual illusions of living things."

Haruko rolls the scroll open—it's theory around how to create small, living objects, that interact with the world rather than remaining static. It uses a bird as the example. Haruko nods and stashes the scroll in her bag. "I'll work on it as soon as I get home."

Nonou smiles. "Very good," she says. "I look forward to seeing your progress when I see you next week."

And Haruko goes home to do just that.

She walks through the village in her little light green kimono that Nonou gifted to her. She drops her bag in the entryway of her empty house, sheds her kimono and lays it on the back of their couch, and settles down on the rug in her plain blue tank top and skirt.

The scroll is laid flat in front of her, edges held down by a book on either side.

Haruko starts with a few chakra control exercises to warm up, all courtesy of Nonou, like so much she's learnt recently is. She meditates. She takes a napkin from the table and makes it float in her palm, then slices it in half.

When Haruko feels ready, she gathers a handful of chakra in her palm and imagines a daisy. Her eyes close. The chakra shifts, moulds, and when she opens her eyes again, there it is—or at least, there it _appears_ to be.

An imperfect but passable daisy.

She holds her other hand over top of it but the flower doesn't change its image to reflect the light difference the way a real flower would. Her palm moves, but the petals don't. It doesn't produce any kind of aroma. And, most of all, when her fingers brush against the supple white petals, the illusion disperses.

Dynamic illusions are something Nonou warns her come with time. Creating an illusion that tricks more than just one sense at a time is difficult. It takes practice. Already, she's moving fast through the lessons, so much faster than expected, wonderful, naturally talented, but she needs to be patient. Genjutsu isn't mastered overnight. Skill is built on skill is built on skill, and she'll get there, she will. Haruko accepts that.

All the while, Nonou continues to give Haruko more and more challenges to test herself with.

Haruko reads through the scroll another time.

Genjutsu, unlike ninjutsu, is formed with the mind more than anything. If hand seals are used, it's normally only one and it's there to help with focusing the mind—once the illusion is figured out, the seal is dropped. Most illusions don't have names because there are simply too many different illusions with minute variations to name each and every one. When broken down, genjutsu is all about the technique and execution. Precise chakra usage, both for external illusions and jutsu that involve implanting yin chakra into specific parts of the target's body for full sensory immersion. Complete understanding of the subject being recreated.

The art is complicated. Haruko supposes that's part of why she loves it so much. Knowing that one day, she'll be able to drown somebody without water.

Haruko puts her fingers together in the bird seal, her preferred concentration seal. The idea makes her smile. A funny coincidence, it is, that she's using the bird seal to help her create the image of a bird.

She holds the picture of a bird in her head. She picks an easy one, a sparrow, brown and white and the size of her fist, a bird she sees a lot when she goes to sit on the bridge and mope. The chakra flows out from her joined fingers and hovers on the ground in front of her.

It's a bit messy. The colours aren't quite right and the edges are questionably formed, like a picture coloured by a child who hasn't quite mastered the skill of colouring inside the lines, but it's recognizable as a bird.

She tries to make it tweet. An airy, strangled noise escapes the bird, and it doesn't move its beak to make it.

She tries to make it move its wings. The bird does a few robotic movements. Its wing twitches, but its feathers don't shift to compensate, rendering the entire action crude and uncomfortable to watch.

Haruko stares at the bird, her fingers still pressed into the bird seal.

She never questioned whether or not she'd be a ninja. Dai instilled values into her and Gai of hard work and ambition, and whether or not he meant it, Dai always combined them with servitude to the village. In that, Haruko finds it natural to strive to perfect whatever ninja craft she sets her sights on. She wants to make perfect illusions. She enjoys it, the theory and the mentally intensive aspects to it, but there's always a part of her that reaches forward for something _more_.

She'll learn to make a perfect flower and a perfect bird. As a part of her runs towards that goal, another part, the confused and fearful part, drags its heels.

Haruko is more comfortable with the illusions when they have imperfections that can distinguish them from reality.

* * *

"Did you hear?"

"What?"

"That Hatake man—he _killed himself_."

"No way?"

"Stuck a sword straight through his chest."

"Good riddance."

"Turned his kid to an orphan, did he? So he showed his true colours. Started a war over not wanting to leave anybody behind, but the traitor had no problem leaving his own _kid_ behind."

"That might be what's best for that poor boy. We don't need that kind of ninja influencing such promising talent—that's the future of our village. There are better hands to mould them than those of a traitor."

Haruko stares, transfixed on the group of women gossiping in the street corner, even as Gai pulls her away and into the depths of the afternoon shoppers.

 _Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain._

* * *

After her first year at the Academy, Haruko walks through the front doors with four years worth of classes to her name. The same goes for Gai. Both of them will start as fifth years come September. From the talks their teachers have had with Dai, they'll have headbands by the end of their second year, if not earlier.

Kakashi beats them there; he graduates at six years old.

None of his peers wanted to be on a team with him, and Haruko assumes the sentiment was echoed throughout the jonin ranks because Kakashi is taken under an apprenticeship. A freshly promoted jonin, barely fifteen, is the one who takes a chance on Kakashi, if the rumours are to be believed.

It's a common occurrence with prodigies. Konoha prizes her teamwork and it's not often that a six-year-old genius child can work on even ground with their twelve-year-old peers. When Haruko and Gai graduate, the same will likely be done with them.

The two of them walk home together.

Haruko has her umbrella open over her head to block out the bulk of the sun. Gai is quiet beside her. His face is screwed up in concentration, a look that reminds her of Dai and sends a sharp pang ripping through her heart.

"I wonder what they will do with Kakashi."

She twists the handle of her umbrella around. She can't see it, but she knows that when she moves it like this, the cat ears on the back of it flop around. "He'll go to war," she says. "A tool is useless if you leave it in the box."

Gai takes her words with a slow nod.

His expression is comical, but nothing else about him or the situation is—the moments where Haruko sees her brother sober up are far and few between, and she's getting a glimpse at that side of him right now. Gai is a lot of things and dumb isn't one of them. She knows that he sees what she sees: a parallel between them and Kakashi.

Haruko hears the whispers about Dai Maito's prodigy twins. She continues to progress in her studies, reaching further and further with her illusions, and Gai can take most genin in a spar.

They'll graduate. They'll be handed off. They'll be sent to slaughter.

Haruko reaches a hand out from the cover of her umbrella and tests for rain.

"We… we'll go, too."

"Yeah."

"I don't want to."

"That's okay."

Haruko gets one more brief glance at Gai in his serious state and it's dashed away.

Gai grabs her hand, all grins and sunshine again. "There is hunger in my stomach!" he cries. "Sustenance calls my name!"

 _He sounds just like dad._

Haruko lets him drag her off to wherever his heart desires. Even if she could, she wouldn't say no to her brother, not today.


	4. Twinkle Twinkle

.

* * *

 _Twinkle, twinkle, little star,_

 _how I wonder what you are._

 _Up above the world so high,_

 _like a diamond in the sky._

* * *

At age six, midway through the year, Haruko is handed a headband and shoved into the arms of Nonou under an apprenticeship.

The event unfolds without fanfare; she has no graduation ceremony, Lord Hokage gives no speech about the Will of Fire or the bright future ahead of her as a protector of Konoha. Dai, out on the frontlines, isn't there to witness it. She is given the graduation tests, she passes, and that's the end of the story.

Nonou starts Haruko's infiltration training in earnest. Now that Haruko has no other studies to worry about, all of her attention goes into this, training six days out of the week.

Her curriculum expands. Genjutsu takes a high focus, but Nonou begins working Haruko in poison making and weapon throwing, pressure points and turning mundane objects into weapons should she find herself in a pinch. She learns wind jutsu that allows her to cut a tree in half or suck the air from an enemy's lungs. The new studies are _exhilarating_ for Haruko. A different lesson every day, an unending pool of knowledge for her to drink from—Haruko sucks it dry.

Haruko takes few D-rank missions with Nonou, but when she does them, they always have a modifier to avoid wasting either of their time. They turn D-ranks from a chore to something fun. Memorable ones include doing the entire mission in silence, wearing a henge for the whole of the mission and having to change it every two minutes on the dot, doing the mission in full maiko attire.

In this case, Nonou told Haruko to pick a persona to run her next missions in. Haruko chooses a twenty-year-old civilian prostitute who needs money for a meal. She shows up with a ridiculous amount of toilet paper stuffed in her training bra, lipstick and bright makeup slathered on her face, and her long black hair pulled up into a high ponytail.

Haruko approaches the Hokage Tower, where the mission desk is located. Nonou waits in front of the door. As Haruko gets closer, Nonou turns to look at her and the expression on her face is a priceless mixture of horror and shock.

 _I wonder how many of her life choices she's currently rethinking._

Nonou lets out a put-upon sigh. "Haruko."

"You said I could pick whatever I wanted," Haruko says. She lowers and deepens her voice, trying for a sultry purr, but she misses by a long shot. She sounds more like a twelve-year-old boy who's been smacked by puberty. "You never said I had to pick something appropriate."

"I assumed it would be implied."

"Well, you know what they say, when you assume."

Nonou tilts her head, curious.

Haruko smiles. "You make an… oh. It doesn't work in Japanese, does it? Nevermind."

"If I ask you to go home and change, what would you come back as?"

"A twenty-one-year-old prostitute who requires money for rent."

"And that's different… how?"

"Right now, I'm a twenty-year-old prostitute who needs money for a meal. Different age and desperation level."

Nonou sighs. Haruko feels delightfully childish in this moment. "That's terribly insensitive and inappropriate."

"Yes, it is."

"Alright, well… if anybody asks, I do not approve, nor do I condone this behaviour." Nonou looks around them. She leans down to Haruko's level and, in a quiet voice, she says, "But I expect you to play this character in full, so far as you can go without sexually harassing your comrades. Am I clear?"

"Yes."

"Good. I will be right back with the mission scroll."

Nonou leaves Haruko alone on the steps instead of bringing Haruko along like she usually does. Out of shame, perhaps, or as some minor form of punishment, like somebody taking a toy away from their puppy for being naughty. It serves to heighten Haruko's satisfaction in her persona choice either way.

Nonou soon returns and gives a fist-sized blue bag to Haruko, the cotton stretched by the contents inside. "You'll be running messages through the village," she says. "These are the messages. Each comes with an address—you will take them on your own, but I will give you directions should you need them."

Haruko undoes the tie on the bag and pulls the top one. Along the side, the name 'Hiro Hyuuga' is written, and underneath it the address of, 'residence seventeen'. She holds it up for Nonou to see and, if it's possible, the look on her face _now_ is even more priceless than when she first saw Haruko.

"Oh, dear."

Haruko smiles at her. "I'll be on my best behaviour."

 _My best_ prostitute _behaviour._

Without another word, she takes off.

She doubts the messages are anything important or time sensitive. She's fine as long as she gets all of them out before sundown. If they were, they would have been worth sending a hawk to deliver. The scrolls probably have little, unimportant matters written on them, like casual letters or passive aggressive reminders from the desk chunin that 'your mission report was due three days ago, turn it in soon or _so help me_ '.

Haruko is disappointed when the Hyuuga compound streets are borderline empty, with only a handful of Hyuuga out and about to gawk at her as she makes her way through to residence seventeen. She meanders through, not trying hard to get there. The numbers on the buildings are labelled and paint a clear path of how to get to her destination, but following directions is a boring thing that boring people do.

"Excuse me."

Haruko stops at the voice.

A stern looking man approaches her. He has the tell-tale long hair and ghostly eyes, the stiff posture, as if somebody shoved a stick so far up his ass that Haruko's surprised she can't see the tip of it when he opens his mouth.

"You can't wander around in here," he says. "Get to your destination. If you need directions, I can provide them for you. You'll be kicked out of you continue to wander like this."

"I'd love some directions to your house, big boy—"

His nostrils flare. "You will cease this nonsense."

"Come now, I've got needs, I'm _sure_ you've got needs. It won't cost ya much."

"Get _out_ of this compound this _second_."

Haruko smiles and holds up her message scroll. "From the village to Hiro Hyuuga," she says. "I'm taking side jobs, you see. Girl's gotta eat."

Her eyes drag up and down his body, intentionally exaggerated, and she smirks. Smirks are odd for her. Nonou says her smirks are believable, but Haruko never uses them in her daily life and pulling her lips into one feels like trying to bend rusty steel. She says, "Though, I can see something I'd _love_ to try—"

"You will not finish that sentence."

"Fine then. Prude."

Somehow, even with a blank expression, the man manages to convey a vicious glare.

She considers pushing her luck. She could try, but Nonou requires her to prioritize the mission completion Haruko's confident that if she keeps going, this man _will_ kick her out. A shame, it is.

Haruko puts an extra sway in her hips as she skips off towards residence seventeen.

The delightful tickle of somebody glaring at her warms her back the whole way—a wonderful thing, the byakugan is, able to extend the distance of a glare to kilometres.

Sometimes, Haruko wishes she was reborn as a prostitute, not a ninja. It seems like a fun way to live. Makeup and money and hitting on anybody you want with a built-in excuse for your actions. If she was, though, she'd want a prettier name, something like Ayame. She could bang a silver-haired hottie. Having a kid sounded less ideal, but still.

The sound of Haruko's fist on the door of residence seventeen is a dull thud, one that is answered in short order.

A teenager answers. Another typical Hyuuga, but unlike the one who stopped her before, this one has a marking on his forehead that peeks through a veil of brown hair. Bags are under his eyes and his hair is a mess around his head; he looks tired.

Tired people are easier to manipulate.

He might be a bit young for this type of character, but the age of consent in Konoha is sixteen and Haruko's mostly sure this boy's old enough. It's not a big deal if he isn't, though. She doesn't actually want to have sexual contact with these people. She has higher standards than this and, deep down, in the depths of her being, some hint of morality.

But she's ready to pretend she doesn't for right now.

Haruko juts out one hip and puts on the same smirk. "Hey there, sexy—"

He slams the door in her face.

"That's no way to treat a lady." Haruko sighs. "I have a message for you."

The door opens a crack and a hand sticks out of it, palm up and open. "Give it to me."

Haruko runs her fingertips along his palm. "Oh, so soft. I've got soft parts too that I can show you for a small fee—"

The hand jerks back. Haruko tosses the message through the opening and hears it land on the ground, seconds before the door shuts again.

She wonders if she crossed the line for sexual harassment.

Oh, well. What Nonou doesn't know won't hurt her.

* * *

Haruko stands out in the clearing. One of the furthest back training grounds, a place of silence and isolation, what she needs for more advanced genjutsu practice like this.

Large area genjutsu.

It affects the general area around her, a fifteen-foot wide circle. Anybody further away than that can only see Haruko standing with her eyes shut and her hands pressed into the bird seal, save for what of her chakra they can sense permeating the air. A thin dusting of it pours out around her. It takes time for her to collect all of the chakra like that and then disperse it, something Nonou assures Haruko that she won't have to worry about in the future. When she has more chakra and even better control, Haruko will be able to force it out in a single burst.

They're a few weeks into working on larger scale illusions since Haruko has near-mastered small things like birds and flowers.

Haruko lets out a breath and a cloud of chakra leaves her body in unison.

Nonou told her to use a memory as a basis. While she starts out, vivid memories work best, things that allow her to access a full range of sensory input to incorporate. She can do the visual aspect of it easily. Sound or smell are wonkier, and touch even moreso. She isn't even going to try for taste.

Haruko finds the memory materializing around her.

She hears the applause, first. The delicate violin intertwines on the offbeat, joined by a chorus of flutes and various string instruments.

She opens her eyes and takes in the crowd of people around her. Hundreds, thousands of people, gathered here for her, clapping for her. They all look ecstatic. Her performance is finished. She did well, she thinks, but she can always do better. She has to strive for success or she'll never make it in this industry, will she?

There's a spotlight above her head but it's not blinding her as it should—the millisecond that thought crosses her mind, the light intensifies, near-enough to block out the rest of the world.

Her gaze moves down on instinct, and she sees a snow-white tutu connected to a light pink bodysuit, the latter matching the ballet shoes on her feet. She's on a stage. She can see the wood of it, light brown and scuffed from the dozens of feet like her that have torn across the surface.

The applause intensifies, near deafening now, like a frantic drum beat.

She feels the itchiness of the tights, the pain in her ankles, the coarse inside of her body suit and how it fits every contour of her body, tailored for her. Haruko moves her hands up and a pair of light pink gloves, stretching from fingertip to elbow, come into view.

Dampness.

Haruko tries to look up into the crowd but there's something in her eyes, now. She tries to blink it away and when they open again, the world is evaporated and the rain is pounding down in a torrent around her.

She's standing in the rain.

Haruko looks down at the hands held in front of her. Calloused, from weapons training and taijutsu and everything required of a ninja.

She's a ninja. Those are her hands.

Haruko Maito is a ninja.

* * *

Haruko holds the letter from Dai in her hands and stares at it.

Gai sits beside her, there to listen, and she can see the disappointment clear in his face through her peripheral vision.

Their father was due back two months ago.

The usual schedule is six months in, a month back, and then another six months out. Batches were initially staggered so that the cycle continues. It goes and goes. Steady. Constant. But by the start of the second year of fighting, already, ninja are held at the frontlines for extended spans.

Dai's first cycle was six months, as expected, but the second lasted eight months. Now, he's in his third cycle and has been out for eight months without any sign of coming back soon, which he doesn't seem to mind from the sounds of his letters. He could be putting on a brave face for them. She has no way to tell. Text doesn't have a face to read or tone to gauge.

Gai hoped Dai would be there for their birthday in a month since Dai missed his graduation a few months back. That, at least, was expected. Both of them thought Dai would be home for their birthday, but unless Dai surprises them by showing up the next week for a cycle change, he won't be back in time.

Haruko folds up the letter and offers her brother a smile. "Come on. Let's go make dinner."

* * *

The marketplaces come alive with spring.

Crowds come in throngs, no longer chased away by the bitter turn the weather took. Stalls reopen. Small crowds of salesmen from around Fire Country are allowed in with the turn of the season and they flood the streets. Haruko thinks it's a well-timed move by Konoha, allowing more vendors and merchants in now when the war is taking a turn for the worse, a way to counteract the negative news with a positive morale boost.

She wanders the streets with a pocket full of mission money to spend. She has her eye on clothes, something cute and frilly, preferably, to add to her wardrobe. Her body is going through a growth spurt and she's finding that little of what she owns fits her any more.

Haruko eyes up the shops on either side of the marketplace.

She passes by a few clothing stores, but none of their displays catch her gaze, full of plain clothes that Haruko won't touch with a ten-foot pole. She needs colour and texture, something eye-catching and girly.

An upcoming display catches her eye. Haruko gets closer and stops in front of the window, her hand reaching up to touch the glass.

It's an electronics store. An array of radios, cameras, and communication devices litter the display, all seeming out of place with the world around them. She finds that of the things she's encountered in this world that remind her of her life before, electronics, even in a state so much less advanced than what she has vague recollections of, never cease to throw her off balance. The objects are large and clunky, versus the small and streamlined designs she remembers, but able to do less even in their bigger packages.

This world seemed so fantasy, so far-removed from where she came from, that the existence of technology doesn't seem to fit. It makes sense that human beings would naturally reach towards electronic advancement. She can just never decide whether this world taking the same route as her last makes it more or less believable to her.

She runs her fingers over the glass, tracing their shapes. The shop owner watches her.

Haruko doesn't linger.

She stops in a few more shops on her way through. One perk of living in a ninja village is that nobody gives a seven-year-old shopping on her own more than a single glance.

By the time she gets stopped by a familiar voice, she has a few bags on her arms and an empty stomach.

"Hello, there."

Haruko looks to her right. She sees a blonde man with wild hair and a calm smile to contrast it. He's a jonin. A young one, too, still a teenager with his baby face and not-quite filled out body shape, like he's just gone through his own growth spurt. Kakashi stands beside him, cranky as ever.

"Hi," Haruko says. She holds her bags in front of her with both hands. "Nice to meet you… again."

"So you do remember me?"

"Yeah, of course."

The teenager drops a hand on Kakashi's head. Kakashi rolls his eyes and bats at the teenager's arm, but the movement is a half-hearted attempt at best. "Kakashi has told me all about you, you know."

"I have not."

"You _have_ , actually. Her and her brother."

"Oh," Haruko says. "Cute."

Kakashi looks disgusted. " _No_."

"Look!" the teenager cheers. "He's blushing!"

"Stop it!"

"I never realized you were such a tsundere," Haruko says. "I always thought you were just the strong and silent type." She raises one hand and touches it to her chin. "I'm not sure why I'm surprised."

The teenager cracks up. It's a contained snicker at first, but it breaks out into a fuller laugh.

Kakashi turns on his heel and stalks away into the crowd.

"Ah, man. I should go after him… that's the good teacher thing to do, huh?" He starts to jog away and over his shoulder he says, "The name's Minato Namikaze. Good seeing you!"

Haruko waves.

She picks her way through the streets for a while longer on her way towards a decent stall or restaurant. She isn't picky, per se, so long as she gets food into her stomach. She settles on a dango stand. Something sweet, one of her favourites.

She orders her food, pays the vendor, and goes to take a bite when, for the second time in the last ten minutes, somebody— _somebodies_ , in this case—feels the need to interrupt her.

"My dearest daughter!"

"My dearest sister!"

Haruko takes a bite of her dango. Warm, sugary goodness explodes in her mouth.

Dai and Gai come up beside her, bent at the waist and huffing. In the time it takes them to catch their breath, Haruko has half her dango finished and gets a start on the other half.

"There you are," Dai says. "Finally, we have caught up to you!"

"I wasn't going very fast."

"An elusive target you are, dearest sister!"

"I was shopping."

Dai gasped. "Without us?"

Haruko opens her bag with her free hand and gives them a look inside. "I found a really cute dress, see?"

Dai and Gai peer in, their heads beside each other's.

Dai's face is beet red and he has stars in his eyes when he emerges. "Cute! Indeed, very cute!" he shouts. People begin to turn and stare at them as they walk, most unsurprised, rolling their eyes, ready to see such an unbecoming display from the Maito family. "Oh, my cute, adorable daughter! How I wished I could have seen it on you!"

The vendor glares at them. "Oi," he says. "Buy something or get lost! You're bein' disruptive!"

"We are—we are on our way!" Dai manages.

Haruko gets another bite, eyes closed in bliss.

Arms hook through hers on either side and drag her away. The dango is jostled from her grasp, left abandoned on the dirt. She reaches after it, tears in her eyes, her heart shattered at the thought of what will become of her poor dango, alone, dirtied, while her brother and father carry her off.

Will it get stepped on?

Will some kind soul take it, dust it off, and eat it anyway, so that her dango may have some purpose in its short life?

Haruko will never know.

"You mustn't run off like that!" Gai cries.

"My… my dango."

"We are having family bonding time!" Dai says, an equal amount of zeal in his voice. "Now is not a time to wander off! We still have not yet found your birthday gift, dearest daughter!"

"But I… _my dango_."

"Family bonding!"

"Family bonding!"

The two of them take up the chant and drag Haruko to her doom.


	5. You Are My Sunshine

_._

* * *

 _You are my sunshine, my only sunshine._

 _You make me happy when skies are grey._

 _You'll never know dear, how much I love you._

 _Please don't take my sunshine away._

* * *

The month of April passes in a blur of family bonding. Dai spends every waking moment with them; he trains with them, helps Haruko tend to her garden, brings them out to the marketplace to peruse the stalls. With how frequently she and Gai were on their own over the last couple of years, Haruko forgot how much comforting his presence is. Dai is like a light rain shower, cool and refreshing to Haruko, bringing back bits of life to their wilting world.

Haruko reaches down to pluck a palm-sized lavender flower from the ground. A little balloon flower. She leans forward, stretching over another patch of flowers, to pick a couple of the pink variety as well. She drops them into her pouch, along with the assortment of other flowers she's gathered from around the park.

Today, they're having a picnic.

They picked a spot where they'd have some privacy, on the outer edge of the village. There are a slew of small, forested pockets if one walks past the actual park zones sectioned off and adorned with extravagant gardens or play areas for children, one of which they now occupy.

Gai and Dai sit on a navy blanket, sweet treats and snacks scattered around them. The two are absorbed in a game of hanafuda, both with a look of concentration on their face. She was offered a chance to play with them but declined. They gamble with exercise instead of money and Haruko has no desire to get involved with that.

With her free hand, Haruko pulls open her pouch and peeks inside. She has twenty or so flowers in there, their stems attached, a sea of pinks and blues and purples and reds. Satisfied, she wanders back over to the picnic blanket.

Neither of the boys looks up at her as she settles down across from them, her cat umbrella set up to shield her from the harsh afternoon sun. Haruko clears space on the blanket and pours out her flowers, bringing a burst of a floral scent with them. She loves that smell, the earthy musk.

"Gai," she says. "Pick a colour."

Without looking away from the card game, Gai says, "Green."

"I mean from the flowers."

He blinks and turns towards the pile. "Then… orange."

Haruko sets aside all of the orange ones and adds a couple of other colours to the mix.

"A youthful choice!" Dai cries.

"What about you, dad?" she asks.

Dai strikes a thinking pose. "Hmmm… let me see… I suppose it must be… blue."

"'Kay."

And in a second, both of them snap back into focus over their game.

Haruko starts to twine the flowers together. She keeps the pink ones for herself, off in a little pile by her knee, with a couple of red lilies sprinkled in. As she works, her fingers deftly knotting the flowers' stems, she listens for the clouds. With the weather as clear as this she expects to hear the heavens alight with chatter, but all above her is silent.

She hums to fill the space.

"Ha!" Gai cheers, grabbing Haruko's attention. "Success!"

She looks over and sees the pile of cards Gai has fanned in front of him, an incredible amount of points in his hand.

Dai drops his cards in front of him and keels over, wailing. "A loss… I suffered… a loss…"

Gai scrambles over the remnants of their game and puts both of his hands on Dai's shoulders, his face morphed into something full of comical woe and determination. "A youthful loss," Gai says. "You fought hard! With Honour and… and… and Youth!"

Dai raises his head again. His eyes are full of stars and fat tears. "Dearest son!"

"And it feels right that I do the punishment along with you." Gai pulls away one hand and forms a fist. "It is the only way to honour your Honour. The manly thing to do."

Dai lets out a sob, a gob of snot leaking from his nose, and embraces his son. "Such Youth! Such Honour! My son… you make me so proud!"

"Dad!"

"Dearest son!"

" _Dad!_ "

" _Dearest son!_ "

Haruko wonders if she'll ever be able to take the words 'youth' and 'honour' seriously in her life. She doubts it.

The two of them spring up and start sprinting around the forested clearing, still crying, shouting compliments and kind words to each other, occasionally stopping to embrace and then getting back to their laps. By the time they return, Haruko has three completed flower crowns in front of her.

Gai and Dai lay splayed out in tired heaps. Haruko nudges Dai with her foot. He looks up at her, and she holds out the crown for him, a ring of blue and purple.

He gasps. "Beautiful!" he says. He leans forward, hands outstretched, and takes the crown as if it's made of glass. "Thank you, dearest daughter!"

"Welcome."

She gives Gai his, and he takes it with an equal level of awe. Haruko places her own on her head.

They make a cute set, the three of them.

"I will treasure this wondrous gift," Dai says, his voice uncharacteristically soft. He pulls the two of them into a hug.

"As will I."

"They're just flowers," Haruko says.

"But you made it," Dai says. "So there is nothing 'just' about it."

Haruko smiles, a warm and fuzzy feeling in her gut like swallowing hot tea too fast. How wonderfully cheesy of him. But then again, she doesn't expect much else from her father, and she doesn't think she'd want to.

.

.

The next morning, as the three of them troop out the door, they wear their flower crowns.

The day is bright. The weather is comfortable. There are people about, moreso once they get to the front gates where those being sent to the frontlines are clustered. They get a couple of odd looks, as they always do, but Haruko couldn't be less bothered by it. She just holds Dai's hand with both of her own and stares straight ahead.

Dai stops once they get to the edge of the crowd of ninja. He turns to the two of them and stoops down to eye level, a proud expression on his face. "Look at you," he says. "I have such wonderful children."

Gai sniffs and rubs at his eyes, tears falling down his cheeks. "C—come back s—soon."

"And come back safe," Haruko adds.

"I will do my best to accomplish both of those objectives."

They come together in a last, tight formed hug, before Dai marches back off to war with flowers on his head and a smile on his face.

* * *

Haruko takes a sip of her tea, careful to maintain her posture as she does. Shoulders squared and held down, back straight, chin up, legs tucked under her in the seiza position. With the tight fit of the kimono, it's easier to maintain because the fabric works to help mould her body into the proper shape like sand in an hourglass.

The living room is silent, save for the clock on the wall behind Haruko tick-tocking away in a steady beat.

Nonou flips a page in her book and takes a small sip from her cup as well, managing to do both without movement in any part of her body other than her arms. Haruko has yet to figure out how she manages to stay so still. She suspected genjutsu, initially, but now she leans more towards Nonou having a set of steel balls that give her inhumane levels of willpower.

A book of her own sits on the table in front of Haruko. But while Nonou reads for recreation, Haruko's is educational, an encyclopedia of both poisonous and medicinal plants, this one specific to the areas around Kusagakure. Still, she finds it an interesting read. There are so many possibilities in front of her. That's the fun thing about poisons—you can mix and match, create your own one-of-a-kind concoction, paralyze your enemy and set every nerve in their body on fire, force their throat closed and stop their heart. And the medicinal stuff is fine, too.

That said, the book can only hold her attention for so long.

Haruko keeps her eyes on the pages, maintaining a placid expression while she places her hands in her lap and forms a bird seal. She focuses her chakra near Nonou's teacup.

She's determined to disrupt Nonou and make her break posture. It used to be easy. Now, though, she has months of fruitless attempts behind her. But that's her past—she'd rather live in the future, and in her future, she sees a reclamation of her former glory, Nonou Startler Extraordinaire. She yearns for those days, before her teacher got wise. They grow up so fast.

Haruko pushes a breeze into the cup and forces it to tip off the edge of the table. Before a drop can even be spilt, Nonou reaches out a deft hand and plucks the cup out of the air, takes a sip of it and sets it back down where it was.

Time for Plan B.

Her hands still in her lap, Haruko reaches into the senbon pouch she strapped to her thigh and hid beneath the folds of the kimono. She palms one and with practised precision, flings it towards Nonou's legs. She has some confidence in her ability to hit her mark with them, but has no way to know whether or not they landed. So she keeps throwing. Nine in total are loosed, yet Nonou doesn't even flinch. Now Haruko wishes she'd coated them with something—that'd be playing dirty, but what else was a ninja supposed to do? She made a mental note for next time and moved on forward.

Plan C.

 _Naked ladies_.

Unfortunately, none of the brothels have ever given Haruko the pleasure of walking through their doors, and not even she will stoop to the low of breaking into one and peeking at the women without permission. She has no first-hand experience in this field. So as she weaves together a genjutsu in a tight circle around Nonou's book, she draws from a different source.

One day, while walking around the village, she stumbled on a bookstore. In that bookstore, she found it: the erotica section. Nobody thought to stop the innocent little girl. She looked for research purposes, of course, as illusions that are sexual in nature can be a fantastic way to distract an opponent, but she was fascinated by what she read. She found glimpsing through their pages wildly entertaining. The situations and proportions were unrealistic, the women were caricatures, and the men were absurd. This was especially true for one specific book: Icha Icha Paradise. It was an awful book, if she's honest. The characters were bland and the writing passable at best, but boy were there a lot of boobs. She recalls the worst of the worst scenes and, with her genjutsu, works to transplant the scene onto Nonou's novel.

It's something of a complicated process. She creates the image in her head, places the words over the page, in the same text and size as Nonou's actual novel. More important, though, is the bit of chakra Haruko attaches to Nonou's head, aimed to create the emotion of embarrassment in her. After a few minutes, Haruko is satisfied, and she sets the illusion in motion.

Nonou turns the page with one hand and tucks an invisible strand of hair behind her ear, brushing away the genjutsu as if she's at a swatting a fly.

There's a knock at the door.

Nonou stands, and as she does, Haruko catches sight of all nine of her senbon stuck in the fabric of her kimono. They clink against the floors as they land. None of them penetrated past the unusually thick layer of fabric. Haruko supposes that's what she gets for retrying an old trick.

There's a sheepish looking young boy at the door. He waves at Nonou, his eyes dropping down to the ground and his face burning bright red.

"Uh, hi," he says.

"Hello Kota," Nonou says. "What can I do for you?"

"Our, uh, rice cooker broke. Can we maybe borrow yours for the night?"

"Of course. Come on in—there are guest slippers just around the corner."

Haruko turns to look at Kota, a smile on her face. He doesn't smile back.

A complication.

She'll just have to make sure not to hit him.

Nonou walks into the kitchen and starts to rifle through her cupboards, showing her back to Haruko. Kota trails along behind Nonou, visibly uncomfortable.

Haruko reaches for her second weapon pouch, this one full of kunai, and grabs one. She sees Kota watching her out of the corner of his eye. When she brings the kunai into view, her arm cocked to throw it, his eyes widen and he moves to warn Nonou. Haruko throws the kunai before he can spoil the surprise.

A wall of air stops the kunai short and it falls to the ground. Nonou rights herself and turns towards Kota, expression stuck in its usual pleasantness, with her warm smile and crinkled eyes.

"There you are," Nonou says. "Feel free to use it as long as you need—I've got a spare."

He looks between Nonou and Haruko, expression bewildered. His gaze drops to the kunai near his feet and jumps back up to Nonou. Slowly, he takes the cooker from her and says, "Ah, uh… thank you."

He scurries out the door without another word. The door slams shut.

"Haruko," Nonou says.

"Yes?"

Nonou seems to think on what she's about to say. She shakes her head and sighs. "You may relax."

Haruko deflates. She stretches out her legs beneath the table, numb from being in the same position for near three hours.

Nonou gestures to the book on the table in front of Haruko. "How many pages left?" she asks.

"Fifteen."

"Hmm." Nonou shuffles over to her bookshelf. She rifles through the scrolls for a minute and pulls out two of them, then swipes a book off her shelf. "I don't think these have been assigned to you yet."

Haruko shakes her head. A genjutsu scroll and chakra theory, standard practice, and instructions on how to create poison lipstick. "Nope."

"Good. I want you to have these prepared for next week," Nonou says. She tilts her head. "And tomorrow, we'll work on coating thrown weapons with chakra. It seems that you could use a bit of help on that front."

"Okay."

"Now then, back in seiza. You can leave once that book is finished."

* * *

The only notice Haruko has before she's being scooped up into the air, her book tumbling from her hands, are the squealed words of, "Look how cute!"

Haruko blinks at the person holding her _Lion King_ style. She sees a scorch of red hair dancing in the wind, a bright set of purple eyes wide and full of thrill. Haruko doesn't think even her own family has ever looked so excited to see her, and that's saying a lot.

A few paces behind, Haruko watches the more familiar faces of Minato, Rin, Obito, and Kakashi approach, Minato's expression full of sheepish amusement.

Haruko's attention is pulled back to the woman as she gives Haruko a shake, like she's holding a rag-doll instead of a child. "Is this her?"

"Uh… Kushina?" Obito says. "Aren't you s'posed to, ya know, ask that _before_ charging up to her and manhandling her?"

"Who is Her?" Haruko asks.

Minato answers, "You."

"No, my name's Haruko."

Knowing where these conversations tend to go, Minato simply smiles at her rather than respond.

Obito hasn't quite learned yet, though. "Well, duh," Obito says. "But he means that you're the 'her' Kushina knows about."

"Well, how could I be? I'm not a Her. You must have told Kushina about some other person whose name is Her."

"There is no person named 'her'!"

"Are you sure?"

"'Her' isn't a name, it's uh… whazzit…"

Rin leans over and whispers, "Pronoun."

"It's a pronoun!"

"Who says it can't be both?" Haruko asks.

Kakashi sighs and rolls his eyes. "She's just running you in circles, idiot."

"I'm not running," Haruko answers. "I'm just talking to him."

But Kakashi, like Minato, can see through her bullshit as if it's made of glass, and she gets no good reactions out of him anymore.

"Oh."

"You guys never mentioned she was so adorable!" Kushina cheers, still stuck on that point.

"I think you should put her down," Minato says. "Or at least stop shaking her."

"Right, yeah." Kushina puts Haruko back down on the ground and bends down at the waist to be eye level with Haruko, hands on her hips. "Nice to meet you! I'm Kushina Uzumaki."

"Hello. I'm Haruko Maito."

"Yeah, yeah, I know!" Kushina says. "I've heard so much about you from these guys. I can't believe it took so long for me to finally get a good look at ya!"

Haruko tilts her head. "They talk about me?"

Kushina grins. "Kakashi doesn't shut—"

"Ah, looks like your book got a bit dirty," Minato says, stepping forward. He picks up the book and dusts it off.

Kakashi's face goes bright red, near as bright as the hair on the head he's now glaring at.

Minato flips through a couple of the pages and his eyebrow goes up. "You're studying this?"

"Yes."

"Advanced chakra theory," Minato mumbles, focusing in on the contents. "Huh."

Kakashi, distracted by that, ambles over to Minato's side, his arms behind his head and his gait relaxed. He takes a glance at the words and rolls his eyes. "Whatever," Kakashi says. "I learnt all that months ago."

"Only two."

After a couple of seconds of silence, Minato startles, as if snapping out of a trance. Haruko notices a slight change in his face. She can't put her finger on it. Minato has always been a hard one for her to read. He's funny that way. His face is prone to openness, so much so that she thinks people often don't realize how good Minato is at hiding a secret in an otherwise genuine expression, little white lies that flutter under a mask of truth. Really, she's not sure he realizes what he's doing; it's rare somebody is that aware of their own mannerisms, even when it comes to ninja. If they were, people like Haruko could never do their jobs.

He hands the book back to her. "Sorry. That was rude of me, reading without your permission."

Haruko shrugs. "Not really."

"Wait, whoa," Obito says. "You're a freaky prodigy kid like Kakashi?"

"You're only figuring that out now, idiot?" Kakashi asks. "You've known her for months."

Minato puts a hand on Kakashi's head and gives him a light but a clear look of warning. "That's enough out of you."

Obito squints at her. "Just how old _are_ you?"

"Nine," Haruko says.

"No fair!" Obito whines. "Why are there so many of you?"

Gai, the scyon of wonderful timing and entrances that he is, takes this chance to literally soar into the conversation. He flies towards Kakashi's head with one foot outstretched and the scream of, "Eternal Rival!"

Minato moves out of the way, as does Kakashi, but Kushina plucks him out of the air by his ankle and sends him flying away from Kakashi. Gai uses his youthful prowess to flail through the air on his way to the ground, where he lands in a green lump.

Haruko cups her hands over her mouth and calls, "That was a three out of ten."

Gai, though his voice is muffled, calls back, "I deserve the shame of a zero!"

"I gave you pity points for style and enthusiasm," Haruko says. "You got seven points of deductions for being so easily thrown off course and not sticking the landing."

"You show me more kindness than I deserve, dearest sister!"

The best part is, Haruko knows that Gai truly finds her pity points to be a kindness. They're not, of course, but she'll let him think otherwise. What would Gai be without a touch of blissful ignorance?

Kushina looks between the two. "You're _related_?"

"Twins."

"They're more alike than you'd think," Minato says.

"You're the first person who's ever said that."

"The similarities are hard to miss."

"Yeah, like they're both weirdos," Kakashi mutters.

Minato's grip on his head seems to tighten a touch.

Gai, at the sound of Kakashi's voice, springs into action. He jumps up off the ground and launches into a full-tilt sprint. This time, Kushina doesn't interfere, but Kakashi once again dodges Gai's advances with an annoyed look. Gai calls the annoyance progress—it's no longer outright disgust.

"Rival!" Gai shouts rather than attempt to tackle Kakashi again. "I challenge you to a Youthful Duel of Wills!"

"Go away, Gai."

"I will not!"

"I don't want to play your game."

"It is not a game! It is a Test of Skill! A Challenge! I shall prove my worthiness to you in a game of rock, exploding tag, scissors!"

"No."

Rin nudges Kakashi in the side. "Awh, c'mon. Just do it."

"Yeah," Kushina says. "I wanna see this."

Haruko smiles and says, "He's afraid of losing—right now, their score is thirteen to fourteen. If Kakashi loses to Gai, their scores'll be even."

"Oh? Is that it, Kakashi?" Kushina asks.

Haruko can tell that Kakashi has his teeth grit when he says, "Fine." She can see it in the twitch of his jaw underneath the mask and the odd way the word comes out, squeezed and tight and short.

"I hope the green weirdo wins," Obito says.

"His name is Gai."

"Eh?" Obito pauses. "Oh, sorry."

Haruko could stay and watch, but she'd rather spend the rest of her afternoon reading and not watching the two of them go on for hours playing the game.

She knows full well why Kakashi hesitated: rock, exploding tag, scissors is Gai's ace in the hole. All three games Gai has challenged him to, Gai won. Gai can read body language better than anybody—he does it every spar, anticipating the move his opponent is going to make and moving to counter. Gai can figure out what Kakashi is going to do before Kakashi is going to do it, and with enough degree of success that it's why Gai edges out a win. Kakashi will push it into the hundreds of rounds, stubborn as he is, but even there Gai far exceeds him in stamina and bullheadedness.

The whole situation is fascinating, just not so much that she has any further interest in watching all of it unfold. So instead she goes off to find a quieter spot, all the while the weight of a single gaze tickles the back of her neck.

* * *

Haruko knows something is awry this day.

She knows it from how Nonou spoke the day before, the slight wrongness of her words and her face, things that Haruko can only pick up from having been taught by the woman herself for the last four years. She knows it from how she was told to meet for their usual weekly mission in front of the Hokage office instead of the stairs to the building. She knows it from the silence of Nonou. She knows it from the feel in the air, the incessant whispers of the clouds like a feather in her ear, the odd certainty wound in her gut.

She finds the oddness of it exciting. Something new, something interesting. She hopes for a mission that takes her from the village for once, a real field mission where she can put her skills to the test and do what she's trained for.

Haruko watches Nonou from the corner of her eye. For the most part, Nonou is unruffled, but Haruko can't help but wish she knew what was setting her teacher off kilter—she's now at over half a year since eliciting a satisfying response from Nonou, and it's eating away at her.

It doesn't take long for somebody to slip out of the room and lead the two of them inside, where the Hokage and another man await them. The Hokage is unmistakable, with his pipe and wrinkled face and rough white hair covered by a hat. The man who stands behind his desk, on the left side and a step in front of it, is unfamiliar to her, though. Black hair and a face mostly covered by bandages. He isn't the kind of person Haruko would ever forget seeing.

Both of them seem to be focused in on Haruko.

Nonou bows to the men and Haruko follows her lead, knowing better than to shirk her manners here of all places.

"Lord Hokage," Nonou says.

"Nonou, it's been awhile," Hiruzen says. "How are things going at the orphanage?"

"Very well," she says. "The other volunteers and I have been having an easier time since you increased the number of hands available."

"Good to hear. And the kunoichi classes? Any promising young kunoichi to keep an eye on?"

For a split second, Haruko swears that Nonou's gaze flits from Hiruzen to the man beside his desk, but it's so quick that she wonders if she imagined it. "Yes. Uma Fuse of the third year and Kikue Oki of the fifth year are both showing a fair amount of skill and dedication to their training."

Hiruzen nods, slow and thoughtful, then pulls his pipe from his mouth and gives it a wave. "Yes, yes. Interesting. Thank you," he says. He clears his throat and sits up some, shuffling through the sheets of paper in front of him with his free hand. "Now then, to business." Hiruzen nods at the man.

"It has come to our attention that you have acquired notable skill in genjutsu, reconnaissance, and ninjutsu as of late, Haruko Maito," the man says. "A skill that far pushes you past the rank of genin."

Haruko nods. The idea isn't news to her, per se, but it wasn't something Nonou had ever acknowledged out loud. Rank was never something that came up. Without other teammates, Nonou put all of her attention on Haruko and catered the lessons around Haruko and Haruko alone. There was no need to balance it and structure it the way a jonin team would. Still, hearing somebody say it out loud satisfied Haruko in a way she hadn't thought would.

"While your team experience is a bit lacking, your current mission record more than speaks for itself in this regard as well," the man continues. "Because of this, it has been decided that you will be given an instant promotion up to the rank of chunin so that you may be able to better serve your village by contributing to the war effort."

Haruko knows that her place in this room is not to speak, with nobody having asked her a question, and she knows she needs to keep to her manners, but she can't help the words that leave her mouth. "On the front lines?"

"No," the man says. "You're ill-suited for that placement. We will have you working directly under me as an undercover agent in enemy territory. Your use will be in gathering information and performing hits on key targets."

Haruko considers.

She supposes that she's getting exactly what she wanted, in a roundabout way. If she's lucky, she might even be able to catch Dai at some point, a thrilling thought for her since she hasn't gotten to see him since he last left almost a year ago.

Haruko shrugs and says, "Alright."

Hiruzen raises an eyebrow. "That's all?"

"Sure," Haruko says. "Why not?"

Nonou places a hand on Haruko's shoulder. "She's honoured by the offer, Lord Hokage."

Hiruzen hums, watching with interest. She wonders what he sees. "The promotion will be instated effective immediately," he finally says, stamping a paper in front of him. "You will leave in two days time."

Nonou wastes no time in ushering Haruko out of the door again. Haruko doesn't miss the single furtive glance Nonou tosses over her shoulder at the men on the way out, done casually but unmistakably.

"You're nervous," Haruko says.

Nonou smiles down at her. Haruko finds herself flashing back to that first day of kunoichi classes, reminded of the way Nonou had weaponized her smile against a sea of unsuspecting children. It's the same smile.

"Let's get you fitted for your vest," Nonou says. "You'll need it in two days and the seamstress gets grumpy with people who short her time."

Like an uncomfortable pinch in the back of her mind, Haruko feels that the warm hand on her shoulder is that of a stranger's.


	6. It's Raining, It's Pouring

**Trigger Warning:** This chapter and those that follow will contain content that may be triggering for people who struggle with dissociation and dissociative episodes, so please read with care from this point foward.

* * *

 _It's raining; it's pouring._

 _The old man is snoring._

 _He bumped his head and went to bed,_

 _And couldn't get up in the morning._

* * *

With her vest on and her pack full, Haruko steps out of her bedroom and into the moonlight spilling though the glass doors in the living room. Gai is waiting for her on the couch. He's already crying.

They've spent the last two days with each other and nobody else. They trained together, attempted to cook together, and explored the village together, but now their time is up and they need to say goodbye. It'll be the first time they've ever been apart from each other for more than a week at a time.

Haruko walks over to her brother. Gai meets her halfway there and crushes her in a soggy hug, his chin hooking over her shoulder. It's fine if he ruins her clothes with tears and snot—they're ugly anyways, especially the vest. She doesn't think anything _actually_ goes with this shade of green, not even the plain black t-shirt and pants she was sent to wear with it.

"Make sure you eat your vegetables," she mumbles. "And water my garden."

"I will."

"Do your laundry on a regular basis."

"I know."

"And don't forget to write dad—you know how he worries when we wait too long."

"Uh huh."

She pulls away. Gai gives her one more squeeze before he lets go, sniffling.

Everything inside of Haruko melts into an ooey-gooey puddle at the sight of him, and even though she hasn't left yet, she feels a pang of longing in her heart. It surprises her, how much it hurts to leave her brother like this. But she'll be back. She knows that they'll give her time to come back at some point, even if she doesn't yet know when; she's not leaving him forever.

They stand in silence for a few minutes. Haruko reaches out and grabs his hand, running her fingers over his palms, the way she hasn't done in years. The memory brings a smile to her face. Gai breaks out in a smile, as well.

"Determined, strong, and passionate," she says.

"Always," Gai declares.

She drops his hand and pokes his nose. "That's my brother."

The smile turns into a grin and he tugs on her long hair.

"I love you," he says.

"I love you, too," she says.

She heads out the door with her smile still on her face.

* * *

The first thing they do at base camp is cut Haruko's hair off.

It's unceremonious, done with a kunai in the tent where all their equipment is stored. One second it bounces against her waist with each step she takes and the next it barely brushes against her shoulders. The shorn hair gets tossed into the fire and Haruko watches it go up in flames.

The second thing they do at base camp is give Haruko her number.

She's number 73. On her missions, she'll get names to use for herself, but around camp she's only known as 73.

The tent she's given is small. The whole camp is small, really, hidden in the northern part of Amegakure, near the capital city of Kainan. Close enough that it'll be easy for them to get to and from for gathering their intel, but far enough away that they're not at any risk of running into ninja.

In all, there's only thirty ninja gathered together for their operation, a handful of whom are masked ninja who say they're a part of Danzo's elite forces. They direct everything. Haruko isn't a big fan of them, so far, because they're boring. Boring voices, boring clothes. Like walking-talking pieces of tofu who have no seasoning. But it isn't forever, and so Haruko knows that she'll muddle her way through things.

* * *

Her first mission is easy.

She's given ripped clothes and scrubbed with dirt, smuggled into Kainan, and told to wander around begging for food and listening to the gossip in the village. The only difficult thing is resisting the urge to make trouble and mess around with the people in Kainan. It would be so _fun_ with an entire city of fresh meat at her fingertips. But resist she does.

She spends a week on the streets. She sleeps in alleyways and steals food from people if she can't get enough from begging. There's little gossip to be heard about the war. Her directive was to focus on the civilian centered gossip, to feel out for any weak points to exploit within the Daimyo's court. Unfortunately, there isn't much for her to hear.

She returns empty-handed.

She learns fast that the worst thing she can do is return empty-handed.

* * *

Her name is Hotaru.

She's a little girl sitting on the side of the road with scraped knees and teary eyes. A man approaches her, a headband with four immaculate lines carved into the metal on his head.

"You lost, kid?" he asks.

She nods. "Y—yeah."

"Parents?" he asks.

She shakes her head and sniffles.

The man sighs. "Ah, jeez."

Rain pours down around them.

He kneels down and hauls her up by her elbow. His grip is rough, showing a clear lack of experience with children, which would have given him away if the clear uncertainty in his face hadn't. He hesitates before he reaches to grab her hand.

"C'mon," he says, guiding her by the hand. "Let's find you somewhere warm."

He walks forward with an arm outstretched and his fingers curled around air. He's still talking, looking down at nothing, holding the hand of nothing, and she knows he's well within her illusion. Now is when she really sinks her nails into him.

She follows along behind him.

With a bit of her chakra, she presses into the parts of his brain that dictate his logic and self-control. The illusion of Hotaru peppers him with questions. He gives her answers. They're guarded, at first, but the harder she presses the looser they become, until he's giving up everything he knows about his village with the casualness of talking about the weather.

Once she's convinced she's gotten everything out of him, she gives him the mercy of a quick via chakra overload in the brain. He falls unceremoniously to the ground, brain dead, and she leaves him there in the mud, humming her way back to base camp.

* * *

She's grateful for the rain.

It's a constant thrum like thunder against the canvas of her tent that fills the otherwise silent air. Nobody speaks around camp. Nobody comes to visit her.

She has nothing to turn to but her illusions.

Thankfully, the sound of rain makes a wonderful beat to dance to.

* * *

Her name is Junko.

She's a teenaged member of the nobility, marched through Kainan by a band of hired samurai who are none the wiser to the switch out. Junko lays dead in some ravine five kilometers out of the city. When she's done getting the information she needs from this party, the four samurai will join her.

This is her favourite mission so far. She gets to wear the makeup and the clothes she loves, doing the fun things that she loves and spent years preparing for, all while being useful to her village. It's a win-win-win.

She uses a bit of illusionary work to age her way up to the fifteen years old that Junko was and simply wills people to believe she's Junko. It's more than enough to get the job done.

People stare at her as she passes through Kainan. It's a sensation she knows well. Oddly, she finds it comforting, the way that people gawk at her and whisper behind their hands, like she's actually somebody important.

The manor her guards stop at is one of the biggest in the entire city, befitting of its owner, the Daimyo's brother. The building itself isn't particularly traditional; it looks almost like something from her old life in America, but with a couple of Japanese flourishes. Red and gold detailings on a cream-coloured building, the blossom trees that have no right to be flourishing in this weather, the slight swoop in the roofing. But the rest of it would fit perfectly in Beverly Hills.

She unfolds a fan from inside of her sleeve and allows the guards to do all of the speaking for her. A short conversation goes on between the gate watchers and her samurai, and then she's waved on through with a dazzling smile that she makes no attempts to return or acknowledge—too far below her station.

Once she's ushered into the main room where people are gathered, eyes no longer latch onto her with fervor as they're already full of the splendors in the room. Junko's family isn't important enough to stand out in this crowd. Old nobility, but with only a small village to their claim. Enough to get her in but not enough to catch too much attention once inside nor cause much of a fuss with her death.

Most of the samurai branched off from her while one remains at her side. Her chaperone, as is right and proper for a young woman of her standing.

She idly fans herself and strolls around the side of the room where all of the women have gathered in bunches. Her ears are open for the conversations around her, her eyes sliding from person to person, watching, waiting, assessing. Half the job is gathering the intel; the other half is deciding what's worth keeping.

"Did you hear? One of the servants took pregnant," one woman says. Her eyes flutter around conspiratorially. She lowers her voice. "She's Lord Hiregaya's favourite."

Another woman gasps. "No!"

" _Yes_!"

 _No_ , she thinks.

The woman's expression is _too_ animated. Eyebrows all the way to her hairline, eyes a bit too wide. Her gaze is everywhere—the woman blows it off well by pretending to double check that nobody else is eavesdropping, but the speed and frequency speaks of discomfort. And the second before she spoke, her gaze shot up and to the right, as well. Innocuous except that the same woman fans herself with her right hand, indicating it as her favoured hand, and thus turning the shift of her gaze into a sign that she's accessing her imagination and not memories to bring about this answer.

A maidservant pregnant with the bastard child of the Daimyo's brother would certainly be an easy and useful bit of information to exploit, if it were true. But it's unlikely that it is.

Next.

"Oh, Hisoka, I _adore_ that colour on you!" a woman gushes. She smiles widely, to sell it, yet not a single other feature of her face moves to compensate.

It's an absolute lie—the colour looks awful on Hisoka. A sapphire blue so vibrant that it washes out the pale skin of the woman wearing it and clashes horribly with her yellow hair ornaments. How heinous.

Next.

"—fired one of his closest advisors two days prior."

That gets her attention.

She drifts a bit closer, the trail of her light pink kimono dragging along the ground behind her. The outfits were another interesting mix of western and Japanese culture—a kimono, traditional in pattern and general details, but styled like something of an evening gown, almost like a cheap Japanese Halloween outfit. Rather than being a modest garment, it splits open at her chest and forms a v-shape that was inches from slipping off of her shoulders. The back of it was long and the fabric pooled at her feet when she wasn't moving.

She quite likes it. It's comfortable and beautiful, all at once.

Rather than stop right in front of them, she goes a bit past, angling herself to keep them within her sight but not making it obvious that she's listening in.

"Now? Of all times?"

"I know!" the woman crows. "I would not believe it, had I not heard about it from Daiki himself."

"Whatever happened?"

"The Daimyo grew tired of him, the fickle fool."

She can't help but grin at this.

How funny, these nobles. They proclaim their undying loyalty and pledge their funds to the Daimyo, and yet the second they're in a safe space, they lash out like the smothered adolescents they are. To be on a first-name basis with a close advisor to the Daimyo requires an in at the palace, and _that_ requires significant time and financial investments. She would have had to prove herself—or, perhaps, her husband has done all of the work. More likely, given the state of gender equality in this ass-backwards society.

"How did Lord Funai take it?"

"Horribly. He's furious. He spent fifteen years as an advisor, and he was released from his duties with a handful of words and no compensation."

Her grin widens.

There's not a trace of falsity in the woman's tone or posture. She _believes_ what she's saying to be absolute. Her perception is likely steeped in bias, but the usefulness of this is undeniable. Nothing makes an agent more reliable than a common enemy.

She tucks away this bit of information and continues making her rounds.

* * *

Days and weeks and months are a blur—she doesn't know what time of year it is or how long has passed since she left the village. It's been a long time. She wants to go home. When one day she's told to get up because she's being moved, with no hint as to where, she hopes that she might be. Instead, they go southwest towards the Land of Wind.

The masked ones lead the way.

The travel takes two days with their brutal pace. There's a bit of conflict here or there, especially when they skirt around Sunagakure. Nothing that lasts more than a minute against the five of them.

Like before, the camp's near the capital city of the Land of Wind, Tatsuno, where she assumes most of her assignments are going to be taking place. It's quite a bit larger than Kainan.

The outer ring of the city seems to be the slums, a bunch of dome-shaped buildings made of compacted dirt, surrounded by a set of shoddily built walls that couldn't be anywhere near sufficient to ward off the worst of the weather the desert could dish out. People wave around rotten fruits and shout out prices, stopping only to scold the children running amok through the streets. The smell is repugnant.

The walls for the inner part of the city are triple the size. The homes in there are all made of colourfully painted stone, pristine and sturdy. There's a dedicated market section, with luxurious wares and fresh produce, though the shouting is the same.

It'll be an interesting city to explore, when she's given the chance.

There's not a second of respite once they get into the camp. The masks take her directly through to the middle of the camp, where the largest tent is set up.

The camp itself is also much larger than the one in Rain. It's well hidden in a cave-like structure carved out of the side of a mountain, difficult to find and even more difficult to get to unless you know exactly where you're going.

"Stay out here," one says. They pull back the flap into the tent and slip inside.

A couple of minutes later, the flap is opened again and the same person waves her inside.

The tent is clearly a strategic hub for the camp. Information-filled papers are pinned all around the inside of the tent, something of an organized chaos, and a war table sits prominently in the middle. There's a desk pushed off against the right side of the tent and a bed tucked off in the left. A sure sign of a workaholic who has no semblance of separation between personal and work life—not that anybody did in a war, but this was a hilariously obvious case of it.

Said workaholic is a familiar face: the man from the Hokage's office, the one who first brought her into this war.

"Agent 73," he says. "Welcome to this operation."

She opts for the always safe option of remaining quiet.

This seems to be the right response. He gestures her forward, further inside of the tent, and everybody other than the two of them files out.

"It occurs to me that I have never introduced myself," the man says. "I am Danzo Shimura. And from this point forward, I will be taking charge of your missions."

She cocks her head.

Silence won't cut it this time. What is his goal for this interaction? He sent everybody else out—a clear attempt to appear more personable, to show that he trusts her enough to not have guards around. His voice is soft, but not in a comforting way.

Conversely, it can be an intimidation tactic. Forcing her to be alone with him in his own territory on their first introduction. A show of dominance and superiority.

Or both. It might very well be both.

That seems the more likely one, actually. By telling her his name, he's instantly made himself the most familiar person in the entire camp, and in the same breath, revealed himself to be at the top of the superiority chain, not that there was any question of that in the first place.

What he wants becomes obvious to her.

She bends down to one knee and bows her head. "I am honoured to be the recipient of your personal attention, sir. I will do all I can to earn it."

"Your previous commanding officers spoke highly of you," Danzo says. She can hear the tiniest hint of approval in his voice. _Bingo_. "I am grateful to see it was well earned. There is much potential in you, Agent 73. I have no doubt that you will exceed those expectations."

The 'or else' goes unspoken.

"I will not disappoint you, sir."

* * *

She misses the rain.

Everything is painfully quiet without it. She dares not hum to herself and break it.

Instead, she sinks further into her illusions, where nothing can get to her. She dances and she dances and she dances, all for a crowd of two.

* * *

Her name is Koharu.

She floats around the outer circle. Nobody knows where she came from or how she got there—she just appeared one day and made a name for herself as a fortune teller.

For a handful of coins, she'll read your palm and give you a fortune. The fortunes are more like advice, really, but she becomes renown for her surprising amount of accuracy. She's known around the slums within a few weeks. People talk of that scruffy looking preteen who carries herself like she's simultaneously five and fifty years old, dishing out tricks and wisdom in equal measure.

Sometimes, she'll appear out of nowhere, with that weird little smile on her face. Always watching, always listening.

And then one day she's gone as abruptly as she showed up.

Nobody knows where she went, or why. The slums are abuzz for a few days. Soon, though, she's forgotten, pushed from people's minds in favor of the war.

* * *

Her name is Sayori.

She lives in the inner circles, working as a performer with one of the many dance troupes that populate Tatsuno's nightlife. They perform in the streets, mostly, but are known to book private parties as well, if there's enough money involved, which isn't a lot given the wartime economy.

Tonight, they're out in the city centre, where the brothels and bars are located. It's a hub for drunken men who are inclined to toss some money at any decent set of boobs that enters their line of sight. With their shirts so small they hardly count as anything but a bra, and skirts that are just bits of fabric fluttering off of their underwear, they make a killing.

The dances from this area are nothing like the stiff, formal routines she learned earlier in her life—they're free and fluid, with a lot of hip movements and arm movements, foot stomps, and things of the like. They're _fun_ , and even if this is a job, she enjoys every minute of it. She thinks she enjoys it more because it's a job. She's able to help her village while doing the thing she loves more than anything else, what more can she ask for?

"Sayori?"

She turns at the call of her name. "Huh?"

It's Aya speaking, one of the older girls in their troupe, a bonafide veteran and the unofficial mom. She breaks away from the rest of their group, huddled together and splitting up the profits from the night, and comes over to her with a worried look on her face. "You're—you're crying?"

She raises a hand to her face. "Oh," she says. "I guess I am."

"What's wrong?" Aya asks. Her face hardens. "Did somebody try and touch you? I swear, if one of these idiots got even _a little_ handsy—"

"No," she says. She gives a wide grin. "No! I'm great. Not sure what's going on."

Aya reaches forward and squeezes her shoulder. She feels her heart squeeze in unison, and like the tears, she can't quite figure out where the feeling is coming from. "Well, alright. If you're sure," Aya says. "But be careful walking home, okay?"

"I'll try," she says.

Aya doesn't look reassured, but she drops the topic, likely too tired to argue.

She collects her share and wanders off towards her house. As she expects, the second she breaks off somebody from one of the crowds does so as well. The man is subtle. If she weren't dead certain that he was a ninja, she wouldn't have registered the fact that he moved in tandem with her, especially considering he was smart enough to head for the back route rather than trail her.

She's glad that she didn't make Aya any promises.

As she goes, she makes no attempts to avoid the ninja, taking her usual path through the city to get to her tiny house. The man stays to the back alleys. She wonders if he's going to try and ambush her before the house, but surprisingly, he lets her get inside without any problems.

That's his first mistake.

She half expects him to use the front door, like the idiot she's convinced he is, but he at least has the sense to use her bedroom window instead. She makes herself a cup of tea while he shimmies his way inside. When he cracks open her door and enters the hallway, she makes no reaction. She positions herself so that her back is to where he'll inevitably make his appearance.

He rounds the corner into her living room.

She lifts the tea bag in and out of the water in her cup, taking a step back, just a smidge.

Soundlessly, he makes his move. He rushes towards her and in less time than it took her to inhale, he has an arm locked around her midsection and a kunai pressed into the tender skin of her neck.

She delays her reaction. Enough time to register the contact and gasp. She's far enough away from the counter that when she drops the tea, it lands on the ground instead of the counter, with a satisfying shattering sound.

It's a scene straight out of a horror movie.

Let nobody say that she doesn't have a taste for dramatics. She does, and she's proud of it.

"Scream and I slit your throat," he says, head bowed so that his voice is right in her ear.

She lets out a squeak. Her face aches with the effort it takes her to keep from grinning, but she manages. "Wh—who are you?"

"Ah, no," he says. "You're definitely not in any position to be asking questions."

She swallows. The kunai is held lightly enough that it doesn't break her skin at the movement—a good sign. He's going for intimidation. Startling her, putting her in a position of duress, but taking care that he's not actually doing any damage. The grip on her midsection is also not as tight as it could be.

All of the signs are pointing to the fact that he's treating her like a civilian, and not a ninja, which means that they're all _good_ signs.

"Who do you work for?"

"I… I d—don't know what—"

He presses the knife a bit more, but again, doesn't break the skin. "Cute. Try again."

She starts to let her chakra seep from her skin. Slowly, to evade his notice. She'd rather not let him realize what she's doing. The second he's aware, all it takes is a simple pulse of his chakra to throw her entire plan off course.

"I didn't do anything!" she babbles. "I swear it!"

"I'm sure you didn't," he answers. "But that's not quite what I need to hear."

"It's the truth!" she cries.

"Are you sure about that?"

Her chakra starts to make a field around them, a little dome, while also working its way through his skull. Not long, now.

"Yes—yes! Somebody… somebody came to me, and they wanted me, but I told them off," she says. "I don't want to hurt anybody!"

"Oh, you don't, do you?" he asks. She can hear a bit of emotion in his voice, now. A hard underlayer of anger. "Funny to hear that, considering that we've so far traced seven separate deaths back to you. Seven men, all of whom had _families_. All of them either attended private parties where your troupe performed, or were known to have visited one of your performances in the days before their deaths. All dead because of information _you_ passed on."

Now he's not giving her enough credit—three of those men died by her hands. The other four were killed later.

All of them were men who let slip that they served a valuable role in keeping the Land of Wind, and Sunagakure specifically, going during the war. A few were merchants that helped keep Sunagakure's food supply up. Another was a metal supplier. Some were politicians. She didn't remember _all_ of them, really. But each was a minor cog that kept the wheel turning. Not worth bothering with in the short term, but, when enough were taken out, their absence caused a hitch in the wheel.

She forces a couple of tears to fall from her eyes. "I'm not a traitor… I'm _not…_ "

"Lying won't get you anywhere," he says. "Tell me who you fed your information to and I _might_ just let you live."

She's inclined to believe him, which is funny, since Konoha always loves to portray her opponents as ruthless and cruel, when right here, right now, she's likely to see more mercy than any Konoha ninja would ever dare show.

Too bad it doesn't matter.

Enough of her chakra is in his head to start working her magic.

She presses her chakra into the part of his brain that controls his empathy and logic, and starts to whisper in his head.

 _Look at her, she's terrified._

"I swear, I didn't do anything wrong!" she says.

 _She sounds genuine… her voice cracked, there's no way she could have faked that._

She can and she did.

 _She's just some dumb civilian girl._

His grip starts to loosen.

 _It must have been somebody else, something else._

He steps back.

She lets herself sag forward against the counter, gulping in air.

"Alright," he says. His voice is monotone. "I believe you."

"Th—thank you!" she says.

When she looks at him again, his expression is glazed over, a sign that she's dug a bit too far into his brain.

 _I should leave now, and report that this was a false lead._

He turns and walks out her front door. As he goes, she pulls her chakra back. His feet stutter a bit once all of its gone, but he simply gives his head a shake and leaves the house without another word.

Well, that's done.

She stoops down to pick up the remains of her mug. When she reaches for one of the largest shards, she frowns. Her hands are shaking. She stares down at them and watches one tear hit her palm, and then another, and she realizes that there's a steady stream of them coming down her face.

How odd.

She finishes cleaning up the mess on her kitchen floor and heads off to bed.

* * *

"We thank you for your service. You've been of great help to the war effort. As a reward, we are allowing you to return to the village, so that you may recuperate."

She wants to stay. She wants to be of use. She wants to serve.

But she dares not say any of this. She bows and takes the order with a simple, "Thank you."

There's no fanfare or anybody to see her off. Everything she owns stays within her pack at all times, so she needs no time to prepare. Within an hour of receiving the order, she's leaving camp, on her own to make travel easier. Rather than take another trip past Suna, she plans on sticking to the east coast and going through the Land of Rivers instead.

It'll be easy.

She gets through the Land of Rivers fine, gets to the border of the Land of Fire without any issue. She assumes that she's home free once she's there.

That assumption is shattered when a kunai nicks her in the thigh as she runs through the trees. It startles her, in truth—her chakra sense is meagre, but generally, it's strong enough that she would sense most people within fifty metres of her. But it's even more off-putting because the kunai comes from _in_ _front_ of her.

She drops down from the trees, hands ready in front of her. Her chakra is already flushed from her skin and thick in the air, ready to trap anybody who dares to get close. Whoever is attacking her is too smart for that. Another kunai comes her way, and this one has an exploding tag attached to the hilt. She's too slow in jumping back. The explosion tosses her through the air and disperses all of her chakra.

She rolls on impact and comes up in a crouch. Four people reveal themselves, creating a loose circle around her. All of them have Sunagakure hitai-ate on.

They go to close in on her. She's ready for them, this time. She whips out a pouch of poison and as the four converge, she launches herself upwards, leaving a cloud of poison in her wake. There's some coughing, but she doesn't wait around long enough to see the effectiveness of it, opting to sprint from the scene like she's never sprinted before.

The stunt buys her a couple of minutes to try and put some distance between herself and the four of them, but it's nowhere near enough, and soon she's being peppered with projectiles again. The upside is that they're only coming from three directions. The downside is that she's being shot at from three directions.

She ducks and weaves, but more get her than she'd like. A lot more. She's bleeding from various spots on her body, some minor, but two or three are gashes that could become a serious issue if left to bleed.

Running alone won't cut this.

She reaches into her pouch and starts shooting off her own senbon, the way Nonou always taught her to. Poison on their tips and chakra fueling her throw. She manages to get one of them down through this—not dead, she doesn't think, but dulled from the poison enough that they fall behind.

Once again, she drops down from the trees, eyes peeled for their move. She hopes they're predictable and they don't disappoint her. Once again, a kunai and explosive tag comes her way and she lets the force of it toss her off a ways. She doesn't try and catch herself on the landing. Her back hits a tree and the force of it knocks the breath from her chest, but that's fine—makes it all the more convincing.

She closes her eyes and feigns unconsciousness. All the while, she's gathering her chakra, holding it in tight but not sending it out, not just yet. The two left come over to her position. They get close, nice and close.

"She looks like she's out," a voice says.

"Yeah, I think she— _wait_ , no—"

All of her chakra flies out of her and she forces an illusion into place within seconds. She weaves layers and layers, but they're straining against her hold. She can take one out but to do so, she has to stop building on her layers—the second she lets go enough to kill one the other is going to break out.

She picks the one closest to her because he's the ugliest. All of her chakra latches onto his brain and _squeezes_. He's braindead in under a second.

Before she can gather herself, spots dancing over her eyes, a ball of fire is right in her face and she throws herself out of the way. She's too slow and she feels her side get scorched. The pain is vicious and lasting but she has no time to ponder on it because the last ninja pounces.

He's got a katana out. Unfortunately, he knows how to use it, and close combat is about as far from her forte as she can get. She avoids him to the best of her abilities, but it's a losing fight. He doesn't give her the time to gather her chakra enough to try for another illusion, and even if he did, she doubts that she would be able to make it stick, given that he's probably waiting for her to try. That she's injured makes this all the harder.

So, rather than go for genjutsu, she readies herself for ninjutsu. She doesn't have many in her arsenal and spending as long as she has without practice, she's rusty. The training she did around camp—when she was around camp, at least—was focused on improving her genjutsu exclusively. Taijutsu and ninjutsu were _never_ touched. Of course, she brought her own study material with her, stolen from Nonou's personal stash and the Konoha library, and trained on her own whenever she could. It was just harder to do without any guidance; she feels the rust.

But she can't let it get in her way, not now.

The only one she can think to use is one Nonou taught her in the days before she left Konoha. She starts to gather up her chakra and the ninja, likely sensing this, further presses her, not wanting to give her the chance. In doing this, he's put himself right where she wants him.

She waits until he strikes and then her hands fly through three seals. Bird, hare, dragon. A massive gust of wind hits him square in the chest and sends him careening off of his feet, right into a tree. He's not out, not even close, but the hit is enough to disorient him for a few precious seconds, and she closes in.

She gets on top of him. She's _much_ smaller, but with her one knee crushing his windpipe and another on his sternum, she has the leverage over him to wrestle the katana from his hand. She's given him two options: get her off of him or get the katana. He drops the katana. She grabs it, and as she does, he uses both hands to shove her off.

It sends her rolling off of him at an awkward angle, but the katana is firmly in her grasp. She comes up in a crouch and in one motion, she stands and pivots, arcing the katana towards the air she knows he'll occupy once he's standing.

She ends up slicing him open from his stomach to his armpit mid-tackle. The blade tears through his flesh like its made of butter. He falls limp, propelled face-first into the ground by his own momentum.

She plants the blade in his chest for good measure.

This is when the exhaustion hits her.

She stumbles forward, but her legs aren't willing to carry her weight any longer, the traitors. She pitches into one of the trees and holds onto it for dear life. Her entire body feels like a noodle. Rather than fruitlessly pushing herself towards Konoha, she lets herself crumple against the tree, and ends up sitting with her back to it.

She doesn't have any medical supplies on her, so she puts to use what provisional first aid Nonou drilled into her, tearing her clothes into bandages and patching up the worst of her injuries.

It'd be easier if her hands would stop trembling and her eyes would dry so she could get a clear view of what she's doing. But, once again, her body seems to have decided that now's the time to act irrationally.

She gives up.

 _Later_ , she tells herself. _I'll do it later. I'll just sleep some of this off._

It's a stupid idea but her body is on its rebellious streak, and whether she wants to sleep or not, she's out like a light.

* * *

A/N: Special thanks to **Sage Thrasher** for her beta work!


	7. Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home

_._

* * *

 _Ladybug, ladybug fly away home,_

 _Your house is on fire, your children will burn._

* * *

She doesn't sleep for long. The world comes into focus again, and based on the lack of people around her and the position of the sun above the trees, it's only been a few minutes. She gives her head a shake to clear it and she's up and on the move again, knowing that whoever was chasing her won't leave her alone forever.

Every movement hurts some part of her body, be it the wound in her thigh or the ugly gash in her side or one of the numerous burns lining the right side of her body. She forces herself forward anyways.

However, it's not the village itself that she trudges towards—it's the nearest Konoha outpost.

She knows where every single one is in Fire Country. Nonou insisted that she memorize them, way back when, and now she's glad for it, seeing as it might be the thing that keeps her alive. But that's only if she can find her way towards one.

Figuring out which is nearest to her and how to get there a bit of a challenge. For one thing, she's slowly bleeding out. Which is a big thing. For another, she doesn't know _exactly_ how much distance she covered between where she entered Fire Country and where she was cut off by the Suna ninjas, and that's what's really complicating things. There are three outposts in her general path. She thinks she passed the first one already. The second one, in theory, should be half a day's travel northwest, while the third is a day's travel eastward.

The third outpost is the safest bet, in that there's a large village a short ways from it that will be impossible for her to miss. If she goes east long enough, she'll hit the main merchant path at some point, and from there it'll be easy. Except that she'll probably pass out before she can finish the trip. It's only her best option under the assumption that she'll make it there alive.

The second outpost is trickier. It's more secretive due to its proximity to River Country's borders. Her only chance of making it there is if she gets within the general vicinity and a scout group spots her and hears her out instead of killing her on the spot.

After some deliberation, she decides on the second outpost. Either choice has a chance of death—at least the second one offers her a chance to go out in style if the scouts kill her, if the blood loss doesn't get her first.

So, she straps on her hitai-ate, double checks her bandages, and sets off in what she hopes is the right direction.

All things considered, the adventure goes pretty alright.

She lets herself be loud and obvious. It's a risky move. If the Suna ninjas are still on her trail, she's giving herself away, but she doesn't have many other options at this point. She needs to attract the perimeter scouts to her location.

Thankfully, it works. Her insides are mostly intact when a group of three Konoha ninja stroll out from between the trees and regard her with equal amounts of suspicion and concern. Two guys and a girl. All three chunin.

Haruko stumbles to a stop. Her knees are weak, her thigh is throbbing, and she leans against the nearest tree trunk because she doesn't trust her legs to hold her weight for much longer. The movement aggravates a burn along the top of her arm. She ignores it, as it's the least of her concerns.

One of the boys steps forward to approach, but the girl holds out an arm to stop him.

The boy scowls at her. "What the shit?" he says. "She's bleeding out!"

"We're in the middle of a war, you idiot," the girl hisses at him. "You don't just help any injured person you come across."

"She's one of ours!"

"She might have stolen the headband off of somebody else," the other boy says, a thoughtful look on his face. "It's not hard to swipe one off a dead body."

She manages a grin at that—she likes him.

From behind the other three, a fourth person makes their presence known. The spiky black ponytail sticking out of the back of his head and the lazy posture give him away as a Nara, and the jonin blues indicate his rank. The three chunin immediately straighten their postures and fall silent at his appearance.

"You know," the Nara says, visibly annoyed, "you three missed the most obvious approach here."

"Uh… which one?" the girl asks.

The Nara stares at her with a gaze so sharp it could slice through steel. "Identify yourself."

It's a smart thing to ask—not for her name, but her _identification_. He wants her registration number. Each village has their own specific layout for the numbers, but that layout is a closely guarded secret among each village for this exact reason. Though, she expects nothing less from a Nara.

Without hesitation, she answers, "432001."

"And there you have it," the Nara says. "That's one of ours."

The first boy immediately moves towards her and he's stopped again, this time by the Nara. "I want you three to finish up the perimeter check while I take her back to the outpost. I'll get there the fastest. No engagements, though. If you see _anything_ , you come back to the post and alert somebody there. Clear?"

There's a chorus of, "Yes, sir."

"Good."

The three of them dash off.

The Nara walks over towards her, saying something, but she doesn't catch a word of it. She's fading. Adrenaline has been the only thing keeping her moving, blocking out the pain, and without it, she can hardly focus on anything past the burning ache in her thigh and side. She holds on long enough to register the feeling of being picked up, and then she passes out.

* * *

The next time she wakes up, she's in a hospital.

There were a few brief moments of consciousness between now and the forest. Snippets of what was going on around her, noise and bleary visuals. Now is just the first time that she's properly awake and cognizant.

The room is basic. A white bed with a white chair beside it, an empty bedside table, a single window. Dead silence fills the rest of the space. It reminds her of her tent back at base camp, and she finds that comforting.

The next thing that gets her attention is the lack of pain that she's in.

One look at her bare arms tells her that the burns are mostly cleared up.

She shifts a bit, to get a better angle, and lifts up the blankets strewn over her to peek at the gouge in her side, but the wound is covered by a bandage, as is the one on her thigh. How boring. Oh, well. There's only one way to test out how well she's been healed up.

Pain flares up in her when she pulls herself into a sitting position. Her thigh burns when she puts a bit of weight on it. The rest of her is a bit stiff as she hobbles over to the window and hauls herself up to sit on the sill, but overall, she's doing pretty okay.

She settles herself on the sill, her back pressed against the wall and her good leg clutched to her chest.

The sight of the village stirs something inside her.

She forgot how big it is. Kainan and Tatsuno are both large, too, but neither one can quite compare to Konoha. Huge apartment buildings stretching up towards the cloudless sky. Parks sprinkled in among the buildings, the trees that make them up as much a part of the village as any person.

She leans her cheek against the window. The glass is cold; she's warm. There's no reason for her to be warm. The room is air-conditioned, and the outside world isn't any warmer, but there's this odd warmth burrowing inside of her core that she can't understand.

"Up and about, it seems. Probably not the best idea, but I can't say I blame you—with a day as nice as that, I'd want to be at the window, too."

Reluctantly, she turns away from the window and regards the person now standing in her doorway. It's a medic, a young man with long blonde hair slicked back into a ponytail, watching her with kind, pupiless green eyes.

A Yamanaka. How cute—they don't seem to trust her.

"Can you make it back to your bed?" he asks.

She slips off of the sill and pads back over to it. He doesn't make a move to touch her, opting to wait until she's settled herself on top of the blankets before he enters the room, clipboard in hand.

He does a quick check of the bandages on her side and her thigh. The wounds underneath are both stitched up. They were healed somewhat, he tells her, enough to keep her from bleeding out and stave off infection, but they wanted to give her body a chance to do some of the legwork, too. She'll get a bit of a push in a few days if things aren't progressing well. Other than that, it's all on nature to do its job.

The medic keeps a constant stream of chatter like this going through the whole examination. Trying to put her at ease. It's a basic tactic, designed to disarm somebody by overloading them with audio input and winning them over to your side in one go, the same way a chatty kid might win over a stranger. She's kind of surprised that he's trying to use it on her, of all people. Either they gave him poor intel or he's inexperienced.

"Alright then," he says once he's satisfied. "Everything's looking good."

He scribbles some notes on his clipboard, settled in the chair by her bedside, and she wishes she'd bugged Nonou into teaching her how to figure out what people were writing based on their pen strokes. It's a thing that can be done, difficult as it is.

He looks back up at her with a charming little smile. "So, now for a bit of paperwork. You see, when we brought you in, we were only given your registration number as a means of identification," he says. "We were able to pull up your files to check your allergies and everything, but we'd still like to get the rest of your details. Just to be absolutely sure. You understand, yeah?"

 _Ah, here it is_ , she thinks. _Nailed it._

They think she's an _imposter_ , of all things. Which, yeah, she can understand the suspicion, with a war and all. But she can't tell if she's flattered or insulted that this is where their thought process went; flattered that they think she's capable of impersonating a Konoha ninja for this long without breaking her cover, insulted that they think she's stupid enough to try it in the first place.

"'Kay," she says, the first time she's spoken so far.

"Great! Can I get your name, please?"

What a loaded question. Well, if they want to gather info, she might as well do the same. "How 'bout I get yours, first?" she asks.

The medic laughs. "Ah, I guess I never did introduce myself, did I? I'm Haru Yamanaka."

 _Now_ she's insulted, for sure. They didn't even bother to send an important Yamanaka to deal with her.

It seems irresponsible of them to let a suspected enemy into a hospital without sending a more adequate interrogator. If it were her, she would have sent a main branch Yamanaka, without question.

"It's nice to meet you," Haru says. "Why don't you introduce yourself now, yeah?"

 _What's my name?_

She realizes she hasn't spoken in a few minutes. "Haruko Maito," she says. The words feel like a secret, a relic, spoken with dust and cobwebs.

"Perfect. And your age?"

"I don't know."

He holds onto a mask of pleasant confusion, but she can see the way the rest of his body seems to tighten. "You don't know?"

She shrugs. "I don't know how long I was at the front."

"It's the seventeenth of November, year forty-seven."

"Oh," she says. "Then I'm thirteen."

Four years. She was gone for over four years. She suspected it had been a couple of years. _Maybe_ three, but she thought that was a stretch. Four? No. She never even considered it.

She thinks of her family, and the image of the two of them that flashes in her mind is like a punch in the gut. She stopped letting herself think of them soon after leaving the village—too painful and distracting, especially because she wasn't allowed to contact anybody from her base camps. Now they're all she can think about.

 _Crack._

Gai, her lovely Gai.

Did he grow his hair out? Does he have facial hair? Has his voice deepened? Is he dating someone? Is she still taller than him? She better still be taller than him.

 _Crack._

And what about Dai? He might have grey hairs, now, spurred on by age and the stress of being a ninja for as long as he has been. Knowing him, he's probably out there on the frontlines like she was. She doubts age would be enough to stop him. Not her father; he's not the kind of person to retire.

It occurs to her that Gai might be fighting at the frontlines, too. He's as skilled as her, if not more—he couldn't have been far from his chunin promotion when she left.

 _Crack._

Haru watches her for a moment, his pen frozen over the sheet of paper. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm—" She halts mid-sentence when the moisture hits her cheeks.

Annoyed, she wipes at her eyes, but the tears don't seem to want to stop. She can feel her breathing starting to shallow, and the lump in her throat doesn't help it any.

Whatever tightness had lined Haru's posture evaporates. He pulls out a handkerchief from his pocket and hands it to her. "Why don't we give it a rest for right now," he says, his voice soft. "I'll come back in a little while."

That's all it took? A few tears? If she'd known that, she would have turned on the waterworks earlier just to get him out of her room.

She gets it under control quickly, calmed again before anything has the chance to break.

He pats her on the shoulder and goes towards the door.

"Wait," she says.

"Yes?"

"Can I leave soon?" she asks.

"You're still injured. It'll be a few more days until you're released, I think."

"Then can I at least have visitors? I want to see my dad and brother."

She doesn't like that his answer isn't immediate. "I'll have somebody send for your brother, if he's in the village," he finally says. "I'll get back to you on that when I come back."

He doesn't mention her father. It doesn't escape her notice, but for right now, she won't push at it. "Alright."

With that, he's gone.

She goes back to her spot on the window sill, cheeks pressed against the window, and gets lost in her mind for a while.

* * *

Gai comes the next day, and he's not alone.

She's on her bed, cross-legged, staring off into space when her door opens. She expects to see Haru, but instead, her brother shuffles into the room, Kakashi and Minato following up behind him. The lot of them are stiff and uncertain, showing it in varying but unmistakable degrees.

She stares at them. They stare back.

 _Crack._

Right away, she zeroes in on Gai. His hair is shorter, not longer, and he has no facial hair to speak of. He's wearing the same ridiculous green bodysuit as he was when she left—now with a flak jacket instead of the scarf—and has on a set of orange leg warmers like their father. But one thing sticks out to her beyond all of that.

 _Crack._

"You're taller than me, now," she says. "I was hoping you'd stay short."

And then she has an armful of Gai. It jostles the gash in her side, but the pain isn't enough to make her let go of him.

Over his shoulder, she can see Minato crack a grin, while Kakashi remains as stoic as she remembers him to be. Gai, of course, is a mess, sobbing and getting snot all over her shoulder, clutching her like she's a buoy in the middle of a tumultuous sea.

 _Crack._

So much of him is different, but he smells the exact same. A bit like tree bark, a bit like dirt, and a lot like the lavender freshening spray they keep around the house. She didn't realize that she knew what he smelled like until this moment when the familiarity of it hits her square in the chest.

The warmth is back, from when she first looked at the village again.

The intensity of it burns. What were sizzling coals is now a raging bonfire and her clothes are singed from dancing so very close to the flames. It hurts in a way that she can't find words to describe, like it's trying to scorch her from the inside out and leave a husk in its wake.

 _Crack_.

Gai lets out a pathetic sniffle when he pulls back. "Hi, dearest sister."

"Hello," she answers.

"Your hair is short."

"Your voice is still higher than mine."

And he bursts back into sobs. "I did not…" His voice wavers. "I thought I was not going to see you again."

"I wouldn't leave you and Dad."

He flinches like she's slapped him, and she feels a real, physical ache at that, a shard of ice straight through her heart.

 _Crack_.

Her hands reach up to cup his cheeks and tries for her smile, like Haruko used to do.

"I was always coming back," she says. "For you and Dad, I did whatever I had to come back."

Her words only seem to break Gai further. She doesn't know what she's doing wrong.

She remembers all of this as being effortless and comfortable. Haruko never had to think about what she was doing, moving through these interactions with the ease of breathing.

Gai shakes his head furiously. "They told me you were dead," he croaks. "A year after you left, they said you were dead."

And that's the last straw.

 _Shatter._

His voice, his expression, his presence, jerking her emotions around fast enough to give her whiplash. One second she's overwhelmed with _warmth_ , and the next, she can feel all of it washed out of her, leaving her frozen.

She doesn't remember how to deal with all of this. So much, so fast.

And so she glues the pieces of her clarity back together again so that none of this can hurt her.

"… letter in the mail, and Dad was not around, and…"

Why would they think she's dead? How?

There is no circumstance where this situation should have happened. Could it have been interference from another village? Maybe, but that assumption falters quickly. There's no reason for another village to target her. She's not that important. And even if they did, _how_ could they have gotten away with it to this degree?

"… had to come back from the frontlines…"

No. The fault here was with Konoha.

The idiots.

"… and Dad and I had a funeral for you. Your name is on the—on the stone, and…"

Her brows furrow. She looks past her brother towards Minato. "Why would they think I was dead?" she asks him.

She's been ignoring Minato and Kakashi in favour of Gai, but she's rather intrigued by what she sees now that she's turned her attention to Minato.

Huh. He's mad.

There's no one thing that Minato does to bring on that thought. She can already tell that years of reading people hasn't made Minato much easier to decipher. There are only a few finer details in his expression and posture, tiny ticks that hint towards anger, that she can read and group up to come to the conclusion.

Is he angry at her? No. She disregards that as soon as it crosses her mind. What she's asking _about_ brings on the shift, not that she asks the question in the first place.

"I'd like to know myself," Minato says.

"This doesn't make sense. I was never out of contact with my base camp—"

He holds up a hand. "Careful. I'm guessing that what you were doing is confidential."

"Nobody's told me that. I can plead ignorance."

He turns in the direction of the window. "Given that we're not alone, I'm not sure that's going to work."

On cue, she catches a glimpse of somebody hanging upside down outside, watching their interaction. She gets a quick look, and then they return to their perch, out of her sight somewhere along the outside of the building.

She knows that uniform. The white animal mask and a black midriff jacket.

"Ah," she says. "He's got ears here."

She can see the cogs in his head turning at her words. When they stop, the blue skies in his eyes have clouded over with a thunderstorm; if Minato was already angry, he's furious now.

Kakashi seems to notice. He takes a step back as if waiting for Minato to explode, and when nothing happens his gaze shoots back towards her. But she has no answers for Kakashi because she, herself, sees no reason for Minato to react like that. She can't shake the feeling that she's missing an important piece.

Curiouser, curiouser. A puzzle indeed.

All the while, Gai remains oblivious to the entire exchange. He's still busy looking at her like he expects her to go up in smoke any second. She supposes, in some ways, she already has.

"Where's Dad?" she asks him. "I was hoping he'd come along, too."

Initially, she just wanted to see Dai for the same reasons she wanted to see Gai—they're her family and she missed them. And that's still true. She just also thinks he might have some important information that might clear up some of this.

Something about the way Gai looks down at his hands and shrinks in on himself sends a chill through her whole body, threatening to crack her clarity for the second time in five minutes.

"He…" Gai holds back the tears, this time. "Haruko, he is dead."

 _Oh._

It takes her a second to register what he said. When she does, all she can manage is a soft, "Oh."

"It is my fault—I—he was protecting me—he saved me. We got outnumbered and he saved me and my teammates, and—and he…"

He keeps going on, but her mind is wandering into a million different places.

Dai is dead.

Dead, gone, and never coming back. If his next adventure is anything like hers, he's in an entirely different world by now. He probably has been for a while. She doesn't know all of the rules that govern these things. Only gods or spirits or whoever manages all of this reincarnation business can know those things. It's possible that Dai might be somewhere in Konoha right now, a little baby screaming at the top of his brand new lungs. She hopes he is. But in her gut, she knows that he's long gone from her grasp, off in some other universe.

If he can't be here, he better be somewhere peaceful and worthy of its new sun. Somewhere that he doesn't have to fight.

He deserves all of it and more. He deserves the world, laid out at his feet because Dai is the kind of person who would never dare take a step forward if it meant crushing another underfoot, no matter how much smaller they are.

She wants him to grow up with a loving family. She wants him to find somebody to marry that deserves to bask in his light for every single day of their life. She wants him to have children, again, so that more people can share her experience of being raised by him, the virtues he instilled in her, the care he showed her.

She wants…

 _I want…_

A finger snaps in front of her face and she crashes back down to earth.

Her entire body is shaking and she's crying and this time, it makes sense to her why her body is reacting like this.

The room is empty, save for Minato sitting at the edge of her bed. She watches him drop his hand into his lap. Any of his previous anger is long gone and all she sees from him now is concern.

 _Already shattered._

She didn't even hear the cracks, this time.

The shards are at her feet, hundreds of splintered pieces left spread around her. She wonders how many times she can put them back together again, how many pieces will refuse to go back in their place, how much is going to get left behind each and every time she has to try and put this back together.

When she has it reformed, her body is stilled and her breathing is evened out. The tears continue to fall; one piece lost to the wind.

"What are you feeling?" Minato asks.

Not how is she feeling, but _what_ is she feeling. They're two very different questions and she's well aware of the difference, and that she can't slip out of his question, even if the discomfort in his posture leads her to thinks think that he might be a bit out of his element.

She holds his gaze.

Minato's the one who looks away first.

He sighs. "You're too young for this."

And yet here she is.

"Where are Gai and Kakashi?" she asks.

"I sent them out once I realized you were overwhelmed. It was a lot at once, but I can't really blame Gai."

Leaving them alone is an interesting choice to make, based on the two boys that she remembers. She can only imagine it ending in destruction. But four years is a long time, long enough for these things to change.

She tilts her head. "Do they get along now?"

"Better than I ever thought they would," Minato says. "Mostly over the last couple of years, after everything with Gai happened."

"That's good. I'm glad he has somebody," she says.

And she means it.

Minato's lips twitch as if he's forming words in his head but not letting himself voice them. Eventually, he says, "We'll come back tomorrow."

"'Kay."

He gives her an awkward pat on the head and makes his escape with one last glance cast towards the window. She watches him go, her hands still and her face dry.

She's grateful that she wants to see all of them again tomorrow.


	8. Ninna Nanna

.

* * *

 _Ninna nanna, ninna oh,_  
 _To whom shall I give this baby?_

 _If I give it to the old hag,_  
 _She'll keep it for a week._

 _If I give it to the bogeyman,_  
 _He'll keep it for an entire year._

 _If I give it to the white wolf,_  
 _He'll keep it for a long time._

* * *

Gai comes around again the next day.

He better matches the boy she remembers. All bright grins and exuberance, bouncing around her hospital room as he catches her up on everything she missed while she was gone. Kakashi doesn't come along this time but Minato does. He waits in the corner, a small smile on his face, and watches their conversation unfold, giving the odd interjection here or there.

Gai's presence becomes a constant in her little hospital room. He brings in his teammates, some of his friends (he has _friends_ now, which is a whole new concept for her). For the next week that she's stuck there, Gai comes every day to nourish her soul like a sun-kissed rainshower gives new life to a bed of flowers in spring.

He's just like she remembers and that simplifies the task of sliding on her Haruko mask and making it through their interactions.

On her last day, he's there, Minato in tow as per usual. He holds her hand in both of his and babbles on about what he did in training that day. She listens, head tilted just so and a smile pasted on her face. With Gai being the boy she remembers, it only seems fair that she tries to be the girl that he remembers. She thinks she's doing a pretty good job. It's easier the longer she does it; the skin stretches and grows more comfortable each time she slips it over her body.

"... and I launched myself at Genma with all the Youth and Vigor I had!"

"Did the hit land?" she asks.

"Well… no, but—"

"Did you stick the landing?"

"As best as I could!"

"A six, then," she says. "Carry on."

"Yes, well, after Genma dodged me with his incredible reflexes, I managed to recover quickly and I—"

Gai is cut off again when the door to her hospital room opens. He looks over his shoulder and Minato tenses, eyes flitting from the window to the door.

A young woman walks into the room. She seems to be in her late teens and has an entirely forgettable appearance. Medium-length dark brown hair in a ponytail, dark brown eyes, unblemished skin, and a regular build underneath her chunin uniform.

Minato rises from his seat and smiles at the woman. "Hi there," he says. He crosses his arms over his chest. "Need something?"

"I'm here for Haruko Maito," she says. "She's required for a debriefing about her time spent during the war."

Gai's hands tighten over hers.

Minato raises an eyebrow. "Oh? That's a bit unusual, isn't it?"

"Not for the kind of work she was doing."

"Uh huh. And who's ordered this debriefing?"

"Lord Hokage."

She steps forward and hands a scroll to Minato.

He reads through it, his nose scrunching ever so slightly as he goes. "So I see," Minato mumbles, handing it back to her. "Alright."

"She'll be discharged once she's done," the woman says. She pockets the missive. "This should only take an hour, maybe an hour and a half."

Minato turns to her and gives her a tight smile, and he steps out of the way, moving to stand at Gai's shoulder.

And so, she's led away, down, down, down, to the basement of the hospital and through a labyrinth of tunnels that lay there, a secret, hidden with seals and illusions that the woman waves away. She's lead from the tunnel's entrance to exit, the tune of echoing footsteps serving as the soundtrack to their adventure.

She expects the lack of conversation to be comforting. For so long, she spent most of her days in silence unless she was working. Around base camp, around her various sleeping spots once night fell and there was nobody left to talk to, around her house in Tatsuno. The quiet was a constant and she grew to welcome it as a friend.

She doesn't, this time. She'd like to say she understands why, but the logic for it seems to have grown legs and walked out of her brain.

The room that she finds herself in after leaving the tunnels is plain. Concrete walls around a concrete floor, broken only by the metal door on the other side of the room. "Come along," the woman says. She slips a porcelain mask over her face. "Lord Danzo is waiting for you."

Oh. She sees now.

Without another word, she follows, falling into step behind the woman. The place is huge. On either side, she can see masked people training and working through the wide windows stamped into the concrete. There are more masked people down here than she ever imagined existed—there were never that many of them in base camps and she figured it had to be a position of authority. Now she's not so sure.

The longer they walk, the more all of the hallways seem to blend together and the harder it is for her to make a mental map of the place. She gets the inexplicable sense that she's deep underground and rather than focusing on the layout of the building, her mind wanders to images of grand tombs from her world, the ones that held dead people and riches and secrets and exist only in her mind. The difference is that she doubts there are any treasures, here. Just a bunch of people in masks and more secrets than she can possibly fathom.

They finally stop at a door.

The woman gestures to it with her hand. "Lord Danzo is waiting for you in here."

 _Lord_ Danzo.

That sticks out to her. He was never referred to as such back in base camp—he was always 'sir'. The implication of the title within the village is interesting to her, as the only other person within the village who received that level of respect was the Hokage.

She knocks. Nobody calls her in, but the door opens itself, and the woman ushers her inside with a shove between her shoulder blades.

Danzo is waiting in the middle of the room for her. Another masked person flanks him.

She walks towards Danzo and falls to one knee in front of him, her head bowed. "Lord Danzo."

She can't see his face, but she knows that she's earned a hint of a smile from him, that ghostly flicker, the closest he ever gets to showing any emotion. She always earns one from him when she manages to catch onto things like that.

"Agent 73," Danzo says. "It is good to see you well."

"Thank you. I am honoured by your concern."

He makes a noise of affirmation. "Rise."

She does, and the masked person beside Danzo steps towards her. She can see now that he's holding a brush and inkwell in his hands.

"As a reward for your good work during the war and your success in evading the attack from Sunagakure, I have decided to promote you," Danzo says. He holds out a mask to her, and she can make out the unmistakable markings of an owl on it. "Instead of Agent 73, you are being welcomed as a full member of ROOT the organization. _My_ organization. From this moment on, you will be known as Ama and you will take the majority of your orders from me, though you will still follow orders given to you by Lord Hokage unless I tell you otherwise."

Her own mask. An actual name.

Oh, how she _craved_ the comfort of being allowed a name. It's only been a few weeks, but that feels like far too long, longer than she's gone in years. She'll miss Sayori—that name served her well and was undeniably beautiful. But she thinks that Ama will work just as well.

"Thank you," Ama says, so softly that she almost doesn't hear herself.

Danzo nods. "You won't be able to speak of this matter to anybody else, nor can you tell them when or why you take your missions. As far as anybody outside this compound is concerned, ROOT does not exist."

"I understand, Lord Danzo."

"You need not bother."

The masked person beside Danzo lifts up his mask and reveals the face of a young boy. He opens his mouth and tips his head forward, his tongue stretching down so that the tip of it nearly touches his chin. The back half of his tongue is covered in black markings.

"Every ROOT member receives a seal that prevents them from speaking about things related to ROOT," Danzo says. "You will receive yours now."

The boy approaches her and before she can react, there's a syringe in her arm. She manages a handful of blinks, each one blurrier than the last, and then she's out.

.

.

She wakes up on the ground. It takes her a couple of minutes to come back to herself.

The first thing she notices is that the concrete is wonderfully cold, sending a shiver up her spine and goosebumps all over her arms.

The second thing is that her tongue feels different. It burns, but not in a painful way, like how it feels the day after scorching your tongue on hot chocolate and the burn's had the chance to grow stagnant.

She pulls herself up into a sitting position and surveys the room around her. It's just her and the boy in the room.

"Here," the boy says.

He tosses a small scroll her way. She watches it arc through the air and land with a hollow thump in her lap.

"It's a missive from Lord Danzo," he says.

And with that, the boy gets up and leaves her alone.

The message on the scroll is simple: _Your mission is to assimilate yourself into the village as Haruko Maito while you await further orders._

Ama grabs her new mask from where it sits on the ground beside her and puts the scroll down in the spot it vacated.

A mission. A purpose. A way to be useful.

 _This_ Haruko can do.

.

.

Ama feels better than she has since getting back to Konoha. That cold, calm clarity is back—it's like Danzo took her battered old wall held together by duct tape and hot glue and built a pristine box of glass around her whole being in its stead.

No fire or ice can get to her in here.

.

.

Walking back into her house and finding that it smells the same as she remembers is surreal.

Everything is the same. The couch hasn't been moved an inch, the pots hang in the same order above the stove, she can see a pink marker stain on the living room rug from that one time Haruko and Gai thought it would be a good idea to play ninja and fling felt pens at each other. She can almost be tricked into thinking that the home had been put on pause while she was gone, and now that she's back the universe has hit play again.

Gai watches her from the kitchen with an uncertain grin on his face. "Would you like some tea?"

"Yeah, please," Haruko says. "I'll have that jasmine one if we've still got some."

Gai brightens. "We do!"

"'Kay. I'm gonna put my stuff in my room, then."

Since Gai makes no move to stop her, she assumes that like everything else so far, Haruko's room is still hers and hasn't been overtaken by spiders and dust bunnies. She's right. The room is in immaculate condition, made bed and all.

Her first instinct is to get changed. The clothes she's wearing are old, the same ones she had on when she fought the Suna ninjas. The hospital cleaned them as best they could but there was only so much that they could do, and a few stubborn blood stains and tears remain. She walks over to her closet and pulls the door open.

Dress after dress after dress is revealed to her, with a token sensible t-shirt and pair of pants sitting at the far end of the rack, barely visible. She reaches out a hand and runs her thumb over the fabric of the nearest dress. It's a frilly, floral thing. She would love more than anything else to put it on.

Except she can't because she's no longer nine years old and there isn't a thing in Haruko's closet that will fit her.

She goes over to her bed and sits down heavily.

 _Bang_ , _bang_ , _bang_ , the fire goes, slamming up against her glass box.

 _Clink_ , _clink_ , _clink_ , the ice goes, shards shattering to pieces as they chip away at her walls.

 _Cra—_

Ama closes her eyes, deepens her breathing, and visualizes herself standing safely in her box, her walls withstanding the assault with ease. She can't feel the heat of the flames or the chill of the ice. She relishes in that.

The glass remains spotless once the storm dies down. As it should.

She gives herself another breath before she gets up and walks out of her room, headed back towards the kitchen.

"Ah, dearest sister!" Gai calls. "Your tea!"

"Thanks." Haruko settles herself at the dining room table and Gai sits across from her, putting a cup down in front of her and another one in front of himself. "What did you make for yourself?"

"Ah… the same."

She raises an eyebrow. "You always hated jasmine tea."

Gai blushes. "I like it, now."

"Yeah?"

"I drank it a lot while you were gone," he says. His grin dims into something closer to a smile, and he takes a sip from his cup. "It got less bad the more I drank it."

That's not a feeling she can relate to as she finds the taste of the tea to be rather foul. She's never liked it. She does, however, like the smell, especially when it's fresh, which is why she always had Dai make it for her.

And so, Haruko smiles at him, and when Gai isn't looking, she waves a hand over her cup and weaves a minor illusion over its rim with a pinch of chakra. To anybody but herself, the cup now looks like it's had a few sips taken from it. She adjusts the illusion every couple of minutes, making it seem as if there's less and less tea until the illusion displays an empty cup. It's an incredibly useful trick for if she ever finds herself in a situation where she suspects she's being poisoned and doesn't want to have to down her drink, while also having more mundane uses.

She remembers that Haruko enjoyed the challenge of pulling the wool over Gai and Dai's eyes, waiting until both of them looked away and then making her move. Sometimes, she would take the cup from full to empty, just to get the shocked reactions out of them.

She's surprised when a hint of that same thrill runs through her.

After the scent has dulled, she dumps the tea down the sink and takes the chance to check on her flower garden. She's eager to get back into her poison making. It was difficult to do while she was gone, the equipment required simply unavailable to her. So now she's ready to tackle the art with gusto. She wants to have as much on hand as she can so that when Danzo calls on her, she'll be ready to answer with a full arsenal.

Gai scrambles out of his chair with a startled cry in the same second that she pulls open the back slider and catches a glimpse of what's left of her garden.

"Oh," she says, staring at it.

Most of it is dead. Some stubborn sections are grasping onto the last vestiges of life but resilience can only get plants so far.

"Haruko, I—I am sorry, I was going to inform you, but I…"

She kneels in front of the planter and picks up a handful of soil. It crumbles in her palm, devoid of moisture. It's been dead for a long time.

"I did my best! I attempted to get help from the Yamanaka, and—and the Nara, and—"

"Gai," Haruko says. "It's alright."

She's surprised by much it hurts to see her garden has become a graveyard.

So she ignores the sensation, doesn't let it past her box.

"But I failed."

"You couldn't have kept it alive," Haruko says. "I shouldn't have asked you to try in the first place. The care was complex and I didn't even give you any instructions for it. It's not your fault."

If she knew then how long she was going to be gone, she would have taken the time. But now it doesn't matter because dead is dead and the soil that's left is too far gone for it to be of much use for planting future prospects. The entire thing needs to be started from scratch.

"I am sorry," Gai mumbles.

She stands up and brushes off the dirt from her knees. "I know."

Haruko tries for a smile, but it comes off more as an Ama smile than a Haruko smile, too big and too harsh. Unfortunate. She needs to work on that.

"Come on," she says. She grabs his hand and pulls him inside. "Let's make dinner."

Gai takes the conversation change in stride. "Yes! Sustenance!" he cries. "Does this mean that you have gained cooking skills?"

"Nope," she says. "I was hoping you had."

"I… have not."

"Then this is gonna be fun."

* * *

The next morning, she ventures out into the village to replace her wardrobe and fill up her vanity.

There are other things that she needs, as well. Shampoo and conditioner, soap, toothpaste. The more mundane things. But she can use Gai's stuff for right now—in a few days, she'll deal with all of that. She'd rather buy the _fun_ things today.

She wanders through the village for a while, umbrella in hand to block out the harshest of the sun's rays, reacquainting herself with this world. As she does, she watches the various storefronts as she goes by, getting a grasp on what's new around the village, but most of her attention is on the people around her, what they're wearing and where they've been shopping. She makes note of whose clothes she likes and where they seem to have been before she starts working her way through the stores herself.

Clothes end up coming first.

Dresses and skirts and blouses in pastel pinks and baby blues, greens crisper than a rose's stem, lavenders and oranges that remind her of a freshly birthed sky. She gets some boring stuff, too: socks, underwear, bras, _pants_. But she spends the most time perusing boutiques for anything frilly and girly. She ends up with a near identical closet except twice as big, both in the size of the clothes and how many of them she has. They could never afford that before. Now, she can spend all of that money without so much as a second thought, an upside of earning a small fortune during her years in enemy territory.

After acquiring four shopping bags worth of clothes, she ducks into an alley and ditches her old getup in favour of something new. She opts for a sleeveless dress the colour of a two-day-old bruise with a little white ribbon around her waist that she ties off in a bow. Her old clothes go straight into the dumpster that she used as cover and she saunters away, intent on continuing her spree.

Next comes the makeup.

There are only a few large makeup stores that she can find in the village, so she picks the biggest and trendiest one and loads up.

A bit of everything ends up in her basket. Glittery eyeshadows and coloured eyeliner, a pretty new set of makeup brushes that reflect the light in rainbow fractals, nail polishes, and _perfume_. She hasn't been able to wear perfume for so long—it was always outlawed around base camp and on most of her missions, only acceptable if she was playing nobility or somebody similarly wealthy enough to afford it. She grabs far more than she can ever wear, picking the sweetest scents she can find.

At one point, she ends in front of a display with lipstick, and she's drawn to a bright red tube. It brings her back to her kunoichi classes and when she was first learning about makeup. She remembers messing around, playing at being a prostitute. She walks away without touching the lipstick—after time spent undercover in a brothel, doing grunt work like cleaning dishes and laundry and making beds, close enough to keep an open ear but not so involved that anybody would remember her when she slipped away, she can't find much humour in that world anymore; games always seem to lose their fun when reality gets involved.

When she finds that her basket is starting to overflow, she decides that she has to cut herself off and call it a day. Once her stuff is paid for she parades out of the store with her splendours in hand, a triumphant smile on her face.

There, she comes face to face with Kakashi.

He somehow looks different, but also exactly the same. He wears the same dark blue t-shirt, and instead of shorts and a scarf, he has it paired with steel guards on his arms and legs and a pair of blue pants, tapered off at the calf. The mask, of course, is still there as well. She can't imagine him without it.

He's standing outside of the store with a hilariously forced air of casualness to him, one shoulder leant against the side of the building and a book open in front of him. Does he think that looks cool? He must.

It throws her off how little he's changed. Everybody else and everything else has such a clear discrepancy caused by her four-year absence but all Kakashi has to show for the time away are a few inches of height and some new clothes. Gai and Minato, the people she knew only in passing, have so clearly aged, changed, in the way that they look and carry themselves, _felt_ different to be around, but Kakashi seems to be the same brat she left behind.

"Hello," she says.

He looks up but doesn't close the book. "Hey."

Haruko opens up her pink kitty umbrella and twirls it around. "Are you here for the sale?" she asks. "It's rather nice. Fifteen percent off their new scents, twenty percent off most blush and eyeshadow palettes."

"No. I don't wear makeup."

"Well, why not?"

"Because."

"That's no fun. I'm sure you'd look wonderful with some eyeliner and mascara—you could really make your eyes pop. More than they already do, I mean, considering they're one of the only visible features on your face."

One eyebrow goes up.

"I mean, if that's not your thing, you could start doing your eyebrows," Haruko says. "I'm not sure they have white eyebrow products but it's not that hard to compensate with something else."

"No."

"Why not?"

" _Because_."

"There's nothing wrong with men wearing makeup."

"I never said there was."

"And yet…?"

"No interest."

"What if I did it for you?"

"No."

"You'd be a great canvas. I can always use more practice."

"Not a chance."

What a spoilsport. "Fine, then."

She shoves half of her bags into his arms. He takes them, looking none too impressed.

"Come along," she says. "If you're going to stalk me, you might as well be useful."

Kakashi adjusts his book so that he can hold the shopping bags and read at the same time. "I'm not _stalking_ you."

"You are. You've been following me for at least an hour and a half."

"Have not."

"Have so," Haruko says. "I counted."

He rolls his eyes at her.

Haruko pokes the tip of his nose and keeps walking. "Getting past your denial is the first stage to overcoming this. Following people outside of missions is in poor taste."

Kakashi sighs, sounding tired, like the fifty-year-old man he truly is on the inside. "I forgot how annoying you are."

She pauses. Her eyes stray to him in her peripheral and she notes that he's already watching her.

What an interesting comment, that is.

That she's reminding him of Haruko is good; she's fitting into her role well. But it also has her wondering if he still suspects her of being an imposter. She's not seen much of him since he only came by that first time. He's been avoiding her. Haruko needs to change that.

Ama should have known that Kakashi would be the most difficult one—half of his problems in life are caused by being too smart for his own good.

"And for that, you get to help me carry all of this back to the house."

"Or I could drop them on the ground and leave."

"Ah, but if you were going to do that, you wouldn't still be here, would you?"

Kakashi disappears in a puff of smoke and leaves, and her bags fall down onto the dirt.

"How rude."

She reaches forward and gathers her stuff. Haruko will just have to fix her Kakashi problem later. For now, she wants dango and a nap, so she sets off for the little dango stand on the way home, satisfied with what she's accomplished today.


	9. Bayu Bayushki Bayu

.

* * *

 _Don't lie too close to the edge of the bed,_

 _or the little grey wolf will come for you_

 _and grab you by the flank, drag you into_

 _the woods and underneath the willow root._

* * *

It's two weeks before she decides to track down Nonou.

She starts at the Academy, where they inform her that no, we're sorry, she hasn't worked here for a couple of years, but we heard that she's working at the orphanage now.

What an interesting development. Of the places she expected Nonou to work, the orphanage was not very high on the list. Nonou was always good with children. Sweet, kind. But she was never maternal—she always held herself too many steps away for that.

And so, off she goes to the other side of the village.

It's a warm day. The sky is full of clouds, though none of them hold a promise of rain or any soft nothings to whisper in her ears; she relies on the sound of the villagers milling about to keep the silence at bay.

The civilians rub elbows with her on their way past. The daughter of Dai has long been forgotten by them, and they don't bother to treat her with the same distaste as they used to. The ninja know better. They all give the girl who came back from the dead—but is also probably a Fakey McFakerson imposter—a wide berth.

It's something that she's been noticing since coming back, and today, as she makes her way through the crowds and the stalls on her way to the orphanage, is no exception. People are out to enjoy the weather before the bitterness of winter can swoop in and sour the skies for a few stubborn months, though most of the crowds taper off by the time she reaches the dirt path that leads to the orphanage.

Admittedly, she's never gone near the orphanage before. She knew vaguely where it was, but she's never needed to follow the path all the way to the outskirts of the village where the building is situated in a cluster of trees, nor has she ever wanted to.

It's big. That doesn't surprise her. Can it really afford to be anything else?

She knocks at the oaken double doors and waits for somebody to come and let her in. Thankfully, fate doesn't keep her waiting.

A minute after she knocks, a woman answers her call. She has blonde hair that stops a bit past her shoulder and olive green eyes that sit behind a set of glasses. There's a precise smile on her face, one that is constructed to be both calming and disarming. Through the cracked door, the sounds of children squealing and laughing drift out and brush against her ears. The scent of something sweet slips out along with it.

"Hello," the woman says, her voice controlled and softer than a summer breeze. "Is there something I can help you with?"

She stares at the stranger and hopes that if she looks for long enough, she might be able to recognize the woman. No such luck. She closes her eyes, letting out a single slow, deep exhale. The walls of her box rise up around her and she allows herself but a short respite in this safe clarity.

"No," Ama says. "No, I don't think so."

She turns and walks away without another word. She doesn't hear the door close behind her.

* * *

She kneels in that same concrete room, hidden underneath the village. This time she's decked out in her full ROOT uniform. A black shirt that ends off at her midriff, a black wrap skirt and shorts—they're so different from anything Haruko wears. Dark, short, and tight. With a tipless tanto strapped to her back that she doesn't know how to use and her owl mask, everything about her right now is so distinctly Ama that it should bring her comfort.

Danzo stands before her with two other agents flanking him.

He holds out a scroll for her. A mission scroll. She rises to her feet and takes it from him with trepidation.

"Do not fail me."

"I will not, my lord."

.

.

She doesn't fail him.

The manor of Lord Yano is nothing but a collection of embers by the time she's finished. Yano showed sympathies to Kumogakure and surreptitiously provided them with financial support. He felt abandoned by Konoha and Fire's daimyo according to missives that were included with the mission scroll. Somehow, Kumo took note of this and suckered him into financial contributions under the pretense that if Kumo won the war, Yano would be gifted with more than the backwater farming village he presided over.

Unfortunately for him, he lacked any ability to hide his own trail and as recompense for his ineptitude, Danzo ordered her to raze his manor and everybody inside—including Yano, his family, and all of the staff. And she did just that.

A perfect mission. No trail left behind. No reason to suspect Konoha.

Some will see it for the warning that it is, but their accusations will be spoken in hushed whispers for fear of incurring the wrath of the village. In which case, the mission would have accomplished both of its objectives: take revenge and deter any from crossing the village in the future.

It's an unpleasant thing, but it's no more unsavoury than some of the other things she did under orders of Danzo or one of his agents during the war.

She should be proud of herself. She did well. She served her village. She was given _praise_ by Danzo upon turning her mission in.

Yet, when she gets home and Gai greets her, all smiles, she's surprised by how much of a challenge it is to look him in the eye.

* * *

The little tea shop where she finds herself is a hidden gem.

Some hole in the wall shop with a handful of aged tables and scuffed floors, a single window beside the door to allow some light to stream in, pressed into the plain cream coloured walls. It's a comfortable place to sit and people watch as, from her preferred table, she can observe people walk past but none of them can see her as she sits alone, which is exactly what she's doing now. She's settled in a cushioned white chair, a steaming cup of jasmine tea that she ordered on reflex sitting on a dainty floral saucer in front of her.

She's come here a few times, now, whenever she needs an unfamiliar place where she can sort out her thoughts without any distractions. It's been empty each time she's come. The tea isn't the best and the sweets can be a bit stale, so she understands why, but she likes that it's an unpopular spot. It adds to the comfort. The loneliness of it, how the gentle sounds of the shop girl cleaning the teaware and baking sweet treats keeps the silence at bay. She doesn't dare tell a soul of its existence our of fear that somebody might intrude on her newfound sanctuary.

But because she knows how the universe works she's unsurprised when, as she stirs her tea and listens to the tinkling sound of ceramic hitting ceramic, Minato and his team bustle through the door, already shouting.

Outwardly, Obito is the first to notice her. He cuts off whatever conversation he was having with Rin once his eyes land on her. He gasps, his eyes widen, and he points at her accusingly. "You!" he shouts.

Haruko tilts her head, spoon still in hand. "Who?"

Minato blinks and turns to look at her. "Oh, Haruko," he says. He smiles at her. "Fancy seeing you here, eh?"

She doesn't respond. She's too busy wondering whether or not he knows that _she_ knows that this is no coincidence indeed. It couldn't be—not after he's followed her around a total of thirteen times in the now two months that she's been back from the war.

The whole situation is a puzzle to her. Of everybody who has interacted with her so far, outside of Gai, Minato had initially shown the least suspicion of her. The opposite. He seemed almost protective of her during her stay in the hospital. He showed her pity and has kept in sporadic contact with both her and Gai. And yet, all of his actions now are sending off alarm bells in her head.

What reason could he be trailing her if not to keep tabs on her? And if he's keeping tabs on her, why? To what end?

She taps her finger against the teacup.

"Haruko!" Rin cries, rushing over to the table. "I'm so glad to see you. All this boy-ness was getting overwhelming."

Obito wilts, a hand flying to his chest and his upper body pitching forward. " _Rin_!"

And Kakashi watches all of this unfold with his usual dead-eyed charm, clearly bored, as if he'd rather dunk his head in a trash can than be where he is.

He's not the only one.

Not quite in the mood for the subtle interrogation she's sure Minato has in store for her, she goes to leave, saying, "Yeah, well, I was just—"

Minato flaps a hand at her. "Don't leave on our account. We're just here for tea and snacks after training, we'll be gone again before you know it."

She pauses.

Well, if that's how he's going to play, she might as well try and get some information out of him, too.

"Alright, then." She sits back down and smooths out her lilac skirt. "But my company isn't free. I demand mochi in payment if you degenerates wish to bask in my presence."

She looks Minato dead in the eye without any hint of emotion on her face.

Minato meets her gaze evenly.

Then, before any of the team can catch the exchange, he smiles at her. "A small demand for such a wonderful gift."

Kakashi scoffs.

Rin, Obito, and Kakashi all sit down at the table with her while Minato goes and talks to the shop girl behind the counter.

Obito pokes her in the side. "Hey, when're you finally gonna come train with us and kick Kakashi's ass?"

Ah, this again.

Both Rin and Obito have been trying to talk her into training with them since she came back. She figures Kakashi wants her to as well, even if he isn't vocal about it, if only so he can get a better idea of her new threat level.

None of them ever outright acknowledged that she was gone for four years. They haven't asked her where she was or what she did or why they were told she was dead, though she still catches them watching her sometimes, the unspoken questions burning in their eyes.

No. Like true ninja, they're taking the less outright approach and trying to get information through alternative means. She can respect that. She knows that they're going to be disappointed by whatever they find, but she still respects it.

"Come on. You say that like she can actually beat him," Rin says back. She flushes. "Er… no offence, Haruko."

Kakashi rolls his eyes and says, "There's nothing offensive about stating facts."

"No offence taken," she says. "In an outright fight, I'm sure I'd stand no chance against Kakashi."

Kakashi gets a bit smug at this.

Haruko takes a sip of her tea. "Of course, I'd never try and fight him outright, so I'm sure in any situation outside of a spar I could kill Kakashi." She sets down her cup and smiles placidly.

Obito cackles, banging a hand against the table. Rin looks affronted on Kakashi's behalf and opens her mouth to probably launch a defence of him.

Kakashi stares at her, eyes narrowed, and she wonders if he's taking that as an honest threat.

It's not, but she finds it cute that he seems to think she might actually try.

"Alright kids, settle down," Minato says, trooping towards them with a tray in hand. She can see a steaming teapot and four cups beside it. Some sweets—including her mochi—are scattered around it. "Snacktime."

She snatches her mochi the second the tray hits the table.

"So," Minato says, setting a cup in front of each of the team, "following the topic of conversation that was already going, when can we expect you to join us for training?"

"Never," she says over a mouthful of mochi.

"It would be fun," he says. "And I've heard that you're currently teamless and teacherless."

"From who?"

Minato winks, a surprisingly awkward gesture, and says, "A little birdie."

She raises an eyebrow.

"Fine," he says. "Your brother."

Using her brother against her? That's a low blow.

She lets out a small hum. "Most chunin are teamless and teacherless."

"If it makes you any more willing, Kushina offered to give you some tips if you come," Minato says. "Something about how 'us girls need to stick together.'"

"Whoa," Obito says. "Kushina…"

Rin perks up. "Does that mean I'm included?"

Minato shrugs. "I don't see why not."

"What kind of training does she have in mind?" Haruko asks.

The confusion isn't entirely a ruse. She can't see his angle, here.

Minato takes a bite of a small cookie from the tray. "Taijutsu, I think. It's something any ninja should be well versed in," he says. "You never know when you might get backed into a corner and your genjutsu won't going to cut it." He regards her, cookie in hand. "Like if you were to get ambushed by a taijutsu or kenjutsu user, or really anybody who decides to engage you close combat."

He says it all so casually, so innocuously, that it _might_ have been a coincidence. It _might_ have been. But in her gut, with the specificity of it, the way he didn't break her gaze for a second as he spoke, she feels that he's referencing the ambush. Meaning he read the redacted version of her file that's available—she's well aware that only the Hokage and Danzo are allowed access to her file in all of its messy glory.

So his goal here wasn't an interrogation. Not really. More, it feels almost like a warning. But of what, she can't say.

"That's true," Rin says, tapping a finger to her chin. "That was something they stressed at my healing apprenticeship—we need to be able to handle stuff like that since medic-nin are normally the first targets."

"Yeah," she mumbles. "It's a worthwhile skill to have."

"So has that finally won you over?" Minato asks.

She takes a bite of her mochi, chewing thoughtfully.

It can't hurt. Kushina is a powerful ninja and any advice she can give will be useful.

Plus, if this is a ploy like she thinks it is, then she might get more information on where Minato's head is at by going.

"I guess I can't say no to Kushina, can I?" she says.

"Best not to," Minato says. "I'll check up with her to see when she's free and give you a time and a date."

Haruko brushes off the crumbs from her fingers and smiles. "Alright, then."

* * *

She holds up the cucumber to examine it for imperfections under the sunlight and asks, "Gai, what vegetables do you want?"

"I will eat any that you will eat!"

"That makes this easy," she says.

The marketplace is barren, the villagers probably chased off by the chill in the late January air. She doesn't blame them, she supposes. Most are so used to the relative warmth of Fire Country that any hint of a chill—no matter how tame it is compared to what she felt in the dead of winter in the Land of Wind—is enough to chase them off.

She simply dressed for the weather. A long sleeve dress and ninja-quality tights underneath.

Gai, of course, is in his usual jumpsuit, which she doubts does much to ward off the cold. But she also wonders if Gai is capable of being cold, or if his Unwavering Youth is enough to overcome any extreme weather conditions that Mother Nature might throw at him.

As she ponders this, she starts to grab at the vegetables. She's not paying much attention to what she's grabbing at until Gai plucks a red pepper from her hand and puts it back onto the cart.

She looks over at him.

Under her gaze, Gai flushes. "You do not like red peppers."

He's right—she doesn't. Sayori did, so for a while, she ate a lot of red peppers, but she was never able to actually enjoy it.

"Yeah, I was distracted," she says. "I just didn't think you'd remember."

Gai smiles at this, but it's a bit of a sad one. "You have always been very picky. I remember Dad always ate all of your red peppers for you whenever he accidentally ordered something that has them."

"Oh, yeah. I remember that."

A set of memories wash over her, flashing through her head. They're warm. All of them are so warm. Not that they could be anything else with Dai at the centre of them. And against her better judgement, she allows herself to reach for it, just for a second, and brush her fingers against the flames.

It doesn't burn.

But she still pulls away and pushes the memories down.

She realizes, now, that she's been silent, stewing in her memories, and all the expressiveness has slipped from her face.

 _What would she do here?_

She goes for the easy option. A small smile, one that puckers the skin around her eyes and only just pulls at the corner of her lips. "I used to think that he would sometimes order food with stuff that I didn't like on purpose because he wanted them but he also didn't want to upset me, so he'd say it was an accident."

Gai laughs and agrees, but she can see the cloud that hangs over him for the rest of their grocery shopping adventure.

Talking about Dai often brings out this side of him. The unfamiliar Gai who stares down at the ground and holds his words inside, as if he's forgotten how to let them out. He never sticks around for long.

So, with all of their produce bagged up and hanging off of her arm, she finds herself saying, "Sweets."

Gai looks up at her. "What?"

"We need sweets."

The words tumble out of her mouth before she can think about them. It's an instinct, deeply ingrained in her.

Another memory surfaces at her words. And once again, she allows it to bloom.

She and Gai at six years old in the park. A disheartened Gai. And Haruko, full of simple solutions suited for the simple problems of the time, dragging him off for treats.

 _Warm_.

She pushes it away and hauls her walls up.

She knows better than this. She knows what will happen. She can't do this.

But when she sees the way Gai's face instantly lights up, she knows she did the right thing, despite the risk. It's worth it, to make him smile. She doubts there's little in this world that she wouldn't do to make her brother smile.

Gai reaches over and grabs her hand. His hand is warm.

Together, hand in hand, they walk off to the same sweet shop they visited that day, and Haruko enjoys the thrill she feels at being able to utilize a simple solution in her no longer simple life.

* * *

Ama stares down at the bodies laid out before her.

Messy.

Three of the bodies on the ground in front of her aren't supposed to be there. It was just the one man, a Fire Country bureaucrat who helped negotiate the supply deals between the Daimyo and Konoha. He was messing with the numbers to siphon money from the village and supplies from the government at the same time. The Daimyo hadn't yet taken notice, but Konoha had.

He signed his own death warrant.

The other three, also nobles, had not—not in the eyes of the village.

Her plan would have been a flawless success without them. She went undercover as a member of the staff, working under the nobleman's wife for a couple of weeks. During that time, she quickly made herself a favourite. And when the wife brought up the topic of her husband needing entertainment for an upcoming social event, she suggested a certain maiko for them to hire.

She was that maiko—or, she would be. It was an improvisation but most of her missions involved some amount of that. She had to be flexible.

The night of the event came and she entertained all of the important men with her usual level of ease. She danced for them, she sang, and near the end of the night, she pulled away the nobleman for a private tea ceremony. She poisoned the tea. It was a slow-acting poison, one that wouldn't take effect for a full 48 hours, by which time she'd be back in Konoha without a trace.

It went so well. He was made malleable by sake. She poured the tea, bat her eyelashes, and he downed the cup without a second thought.

And then the other three entered the room, alcohol on their breaths and predation in their eyes. She knew their intent from the first second that they entered the room and locked the doors behind them with sly grins.

She could have gotten out easily. A simple genjutsu to trick them into thinking that instead of coming into the room with the intent of doing her harm, they had simply wished to join their friend and asked her to leave. She could have made them turn back around and leave. There are many, many things she could have done.

But she did none of those.

All she could think about was what would have happened if it was an actual maiko in her position, a civilian who wouldn't have been able to defend herself, what could happen the next time, what might have already happened.

And something white-hot burned in her chest. It _hurt_. But she didn't raise her walls, this time. She doesn't know why she didn't. She just… didn't.

The burn consumed her.

She killed them. All of them.

And with their bodies still bleeding out at her feet, she knows she will be punished for this. She fulfilled her contract but with far too much collateral.

From the sleeve of her kimono, she pulls out a kunai and carves the Kumogakure symbol into the bamboo floorings, in a place where it'll be visible as soon as somebody walks in. To anybody other than Danzo and maybe Hiruzen, there is no reason to think that Konoha might have anything to do with this. This simple cover would be enough. People would see the typical signature, assume that _some_ enemy had done it, even if it wasn't actually Kumo, and brush off their deaths as another casualty of war.

She casts a minor area genjutsu on herself and slips out of the room unseen.

Ama regrets it.

She should too.

.

.

Danzo only has one thing to say after she gives her report: "Shameful."

It hits her in the place that Danzo carved out for himself during the two years he commanded her during the war. He hollowed out that spot deep inside of her, chipped away at it with a tiny shovel made up of token words of praise.

She never thought of herself as a weak person. Not mentally, at least. But she also knows that even the most stout of people can be made malleable when deprived of human connection for an extended period of time. How can she not? It's a technique she's used before on marks of her own.

Yet, as she sits on one knee, listening to the slow steps of Danzo walking away, the spot inside of her aching, the reality of her situation hits her with startling clarity for the first time.

Two other agents enter the room to dispense her punishment. She doesn't care about what they're going to do—physical pain is fleeting and familiar.

All she can do is wonder whether this is the first time she's recognizing Danzo's game for what it is, or if it's simply the first time that she's actually cared.

* * *

She finds herself on a swing set in the late hours of the night.

Gai is off on a mission with his team. She thought she could handle being alone in the house, but on only her first day she's learning that maybe she can't.

Silence and memories permeate the entire home. It's too much.

She doesn't swing hard enough to get off the ground, just pushes herself backwards and pulls herself forward with her feet firmly planted on the ground. Back and forth. Her eyes stay up on the cloudless sky, watching, a sea of black, as it twinkles with a thousand diamonds submerged in its depths.

It's cold. Mostly dry. There hasn't been any rain in a long, long time.

The closest she gets are the bits of dew hanging off the grass and coating the swingset in a fine, misty layer.

"Do you think we'll ever touch the stars?" she asks.

In her peripheral, she sees Kakashi roll his eyes. He leans further into the side of the swingset and crosses his arms over his chest. "No."

"How about the moon?"

"No."

"Would you want to?"

"No," Kakashi says. "There's enough to deal with down here."

"You say that like there'll be something troublesome waiting for us."

"There could be anything up there."

"Or nothing but rocks."

Another eye roll.

She pushes herself back and forth.

"What're you doing here, Kakashi?"

His expression twists. Did he want to stand here all night without ever fulfilling his purpose? She knows he came here for a reason. He's not the type to keep company for the sake of it, especially not with her.

"You did me a favour a while ago. Back after my… my dad died," Kakashi finally says. He stares straight ahead. "You told me what I needed to hear. I didn't think so for a long time. I thought you were just saying the same kind of things you always said, and that it wasn't worth listening to." She can see his jaw working. "Then I realized it was more than that. It sunk in. And it helped. So, I'm paying you back."

For the first time, he actually looks at her. "You're not the same person anymore," he says. "You're not the Haruko that left for the war."

The chain links creak with the repeated movement, back and forth. Water from the evening dew coats the metal and transfers onto her hands as they wrap tightly around the chains.

"Minato warned us you wouldn't be the normal Haruko we remembered. He said that too much time in enemy territory changes a person and that we shouldn't try and push you or pressure you or expect too much from you."

She's never heard him talk this much at once.

"Did you listen?" she asks.

"At first," he says. "Then I saw you out shopping."

"And?"

He makes a face. "I knew it was still you in there. You're the only person I know who can be that kind of annoying."

"I was doing my job," she says, her voice soft as a cloud. "Playing my role."

"Were you?"

She doesn't answer—she doesn't know what he wants from her. She doesn't know what to say to convince him. She doesn't know what she wants her answer to be, what she needs to say for herself.

"You're not that good," Kakashi says. "Nobody can be a completely different person all the time. Haruko is still in there."

"She's buried," she says. "Along with Sayori and Junko and all the other girls I've been."

Kakashi scoffs. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little paper bag that he tosses in her direction. She easily catches it. She can feel that the bag's still warm, and as soon as she opens it, a sweet smell wafts out of the bag.

Dango.

With that he walks away, hands shoved in his pockets.

She pulls it out of the package and takes a bite. It's sweet. Wonderfully sweet, just like it was the first time she had it, back when she was little. She likes the taste. She doesn't tell herself to like it or to eat it because Haruko did. She just does.

On the bag, she can see a handprint soaked into the paper from the dew on her hand.

She stands up from the swing. She debates tossing the dango on the ground and leaving it there.

She doesn't.

She walks home, slowly finishing off the dango as she goes, bite by sugary bite, and relishes every second of it.

* * *

A/N: Firstly: Thank you to **Sage Thrasher** and **Frolic** for your beta work!

Secondly: Thank you to all of you who left kind and polite reviews. The support is always appreciated!

Thirdly: A few things I want to remind _other_ people of before they jump in to review. Though I wanna make it clear that this is not aimed at everybody who reviews this fic. Not at all. A lot of you remained kind and respectful and wonderful in your reviews. But the last chapter definitely saw a spike in the mixed/negative reviews, and I'm expecting this chapter to see the same if not worse. So I just wanted to say my piece before people inevitably do what they want anyway.

1.) I do this for fun. Really. I don't do this to improve as a writer - if I want to improve myself, I'll write original works, as I know from experience that little to none of the criticisms given to my fanfiction can be applied to my original work. 100% of the reasons that I do this are because I enjoy writing and I really do enjoy the fics that I have going, especially this one. I don't get paid to write this, nor do you pay to read it.

2.) What you are reading is _unfinished._ Be patient. I have a specific pace in mind for this fic; things will be revealed in time.

3.) I'm a person and I read literally every single review that is posted to my fics, even if I don't reply.

I just want people to try and keep these in mind. I don't expect everybody to like my writing. I'm no perfect writer - far from it. I'm young and I don't take my fic writing as seriously as other writing as, once again, I do it for fun. But I just want people to remain respectful and kind when they post reviews to my fic.

Cool. Thank you all for coming to my TED Talk.


	10. A Wise Old Owl

**Warning:** this chapter may be triggering to people who deal with dissociative episodes, so please read with care.

* * *

 _A wise old owl lived in an oak,_

 _the more he saw the less he spoke._

 _The less he spoke the more he heard,_

 _why can't we all be like that wise old bird?_

* * *

She walks into training ground three with a skip in her step, ready to face whatever awaits her.

The skies are devoid of clouds, the air is crisp, and Minato has been following her since she left her house two hours ago, even during her trip to the red light district.

She made it just for him, certain that he would drop her at that point. An easily flustered twenty-year-old being that close to so many very pretty, very naked ladies? Not a chance. But he surprised her and kept on her trail like the trooper that he is, though she's sure the pit stop made an impression.

Minato is the first thing she sees upon her entrance, standing in the middle of the training ground with his arms crossed over his chest. He's staring off into the trees. She wonders what could possibly have his attention in there, but his gaze snaps to her the second she gets within earshot of him and he gives her his usual easy smile.

"Haruko," he says. "Nice to see you."

She comes to stand an arm's length away from him. She can smell his cologne or soap—it's something fresh that vaguely reminds her of how the earth smells when it starts to rain. "Is it?"

"I think so."

She hums. "And where's Kushina?"

"She'll be here in a few minutes," he says. "She and the rest of the team."

"Yeah? And what's keeping them?"

He leans back a bit, just a bit, before he seems to catch the movement and forces himself to straighten up, his arms falling to his sides. The smile on her face grows, bolstered by a flicker of genuine amusement.

 _Busted_.

Crossed arms and leaning away—defensive body language. Such a simple question, but one that he doesn't seem to like, which really tells her all that she needs to know.

She clasps her hands in front of her and leans forward, putting most of her weight in her heels. Strands of her hair slip over her shoulders and hang down in front of her. "So," she says, "why don't you just tell me what I'm doing here?"

He takes a step back, his eyes narrowing a fraction. She feels a flare of chakra near his heel and then a larger burst of chakra around the two of them. She glances down. Between the grass blades, she can see now what she hadn't noticed before—a ring of seals around them, scrawled in the dirt.

"Privacy seals," Minato says. "To keep from prying eyes… or ears. Anybody listening thinks we're talking about what training I have planned for today."

"That seems a bit like overkill," she says.

For the third time, he looks to the trees. He gives her a wry smile. "Not as much as you might think."

She follows his gaze over. There's nothing there. What does he see—or sense—that she doesn't? "Something catch your eye?" she asks, tilting her head in that direction.

"No," he says. "Nothing worth worrying about."

"That doesn't sound very convincing."

He doesn't respond.

And oh, is she intrigued now.

Minato isn't generally this obvious about his mannerisms and tells when he's actively on his guard. The defensive body language was noticeable but wave-worthy—it was subtle, a minor mistake that she caught because she was watching.

The looking around, though? That's obvious. She can't help but think that he wants her to notice.

"What do you want from me, Minato?" she asks.

"Answers."

"And yet, you've asked no questions."

"Will you actually give me any answers if I do?"

She raises an eyebrow.

"Haruko," he says. "I'm not the only with some questions for you."

"I would beg to differ—I don't see anybody else standing here." She surveys the training grounds. "Unless there's somebody else here that I can't see. Did you bring an imaginary friend with you? I've still got some, myself, you know. They're rather fun to have around. You'll never be lonely—"

Minato heaves a sigh and runs a ragged hand through his hair, making it even more chaotic than it already was.

Another obvious tell. This one is more like the defensive posture in that she's certain it's an unintentional slip-up. Something has him worked up, badly. With a slew of emotions swirling in your head, there's only so much you can block out and mask, even for somebody as normally composed as Minato. The dam always breaks and overflows if you try and force it to contain more water than it's built to hold.

She tilts her head. "I'm frustrating you, aren't I?"

For some reason, this question seems to make him sad. He sags like a three-day-old balloon animal that's on its way to being airless but hasn't quite gotten there yet. "Not you."

"Then who?"

 _Ah_. She catches a spark of anger in his eyes and the sudden tightness around his mouth. Whoever it is, the mere thought of them is enough to produce a strong reaction of anger in Minato, a feat that not many can manage.

But again, Minato doesn't respond.

"So it seems I'm not the only one with questions to dance around," she says. "Unfortunately for you, you'll find that this is an area that I'm well practiced."

"Haruko."

"Minato."

"Please, just listen to me—"

"I have no answers for you," she says.

"You still don't know the questions."

"I don't need to."

He shakes his head. "What do you—"

"Minato," she says. She doesn't raise her voice, she never raises her voice, but she speaks his name with the same gravity as a death sentence. "No matter what question you ask me, I have no answers for you."

Minato stares at her and it makes her feel a bit like a complicated seal that he's trying to decipher. Finally, he says, "I see."

She gives him her best Haruko smile. It's small, soft, and deeply uncomfortable. "I don't quite think you do."

Before he can try and question her further, she hears Kushina and the rest of Team Minato bounding towards them, and she turns to watch them approach. She can feel the seals sputter out of existence as Minato deactivates them.

Rin runs right over to her, her entire face brightened by her smile. "Oh, Haruko, you're here!"

"I suppose I am," she answers.

"Kushina told me some of what she's gonna teach us today and it sounds like it's gonna be so much fun!"

"Fun," she says. "Sure."

"Awh, come on! Show some enthusiasm."

She raises a single fist and says, "Woo."

Kakashi rolls his eyes.

Kushina, however, doesn't miss a beat and cuffs Kakashi upside the head. "None of that," she says. "No party pooper energy from you today, mister!"

Kakashi seems unfazed.

She wonders why he didn't dodge the hit. Perhaps the choice was tactical in nature—better to take the gentle swat rather than risk her hitting back with something scarier.

Kushina waves at them. "Alright girls, come on. I'm gonna teach you how to punch a dude so hard his ball—"

Minato flushes. "Keep it appropriate!"

"Fine." Kushina huffs. "I'm gonna teach you how to chakra-punch dudes where it hurts."

Both of them follow behind Kushina to a separate part of the training ground. The whole way there, she feels a tingle on the nape of her neck, and when she glances over her shoulder, she catches Minato watching her before he turns to the boys to start on their lesson.

* * *

"Gently, gently," she murmurs, coaxing the noodles out of the packet and into the pot of boiling hot water. Bits of water splash up as each noodle lands inside, producing a hiss as they float down through the water. "Come on."

Gai stands behind her, hovering. "Ah, do not burn yourself!"

"Working on it." She tips the plastic wrapping a bit more, and a handful of noodles slip out. "Shouldn't you be heating up the wok?"

"Ah!" Gai cries. "Yes!"

He goes off to grab the pan out of the cabinets. Without him watching, she throws caution to the wind and dumps the rest of the packet in. She dances out of the way as the pot gives a mighty heave and steam billows out in front of her, bits of water spraying out in the fray. It settles in a few seconds, after which she places the lid on top of it and turns her attention to what Gai's doing.

"How's the beef looking?" she asks.

"It is good!" Gai says. "It will only need another five minutes."

"By which point the wok should be properly heated," she says. "Cool."

"Yes. I will start on chopping the green onions, now."

She leans back against the counter, rubbing her damp hands on the skirt of her dress.

This is attempt five for them at cooking dinner. It hasn't been too disastrous so far, given that their kitchen is still standing, relatively undamaged. One of their meals actually turned out pretty well—teriyaki salmon, one that she's planning for them to try again soon—while the rest were edible but not spectacular.

Between missions and training, the time just isn't there for properly cooked meals. Mostly, they throw a bunch of stuff into the rice cooker and live off of that. Or they get takeout.

But she decided that she wants to make more of an effort and so here they are, in the early evening, the sky covered in the dark purples and reds of dusk, trying to make stir-fry.

Noting that the oil in the pan seems to be hot, she pulls out the marinating beef. The smell of ginger and soy sauce wafts from the ceramic bowl. She takes it over to the counter and, as per instructions, she uses a knife to halve the portion, then goes over to the wok and dumps it in. The oil bubbles and sizzles upon contact with the beef.

"This smells wonderful!" Gai cries, leaning over and taking a heavy whiff. "How Youthful! How Delicious!"

"I hope it tastes as good as it smells," she says.

"Yes!"

She gets her wooden spoon and starts to move it around in the oil.

Out of the corner of her eye, she notices that Gai is watching her instead of finishing up with the onions. "What is it?"

He flushes and hurries to turn back to the cutting board. "It is nothing!"

"Nothing?" She mushes up the meat so that it's smaller and more likely to cook evenly. "Are you sure about that?"

"Yes! I am!"

"I'm not," she says.

Gai cuts more quickly.

She pauses. He doesn't say anything.

She pokes him in the side with the handle of her spoon. He gets another, more insistent jab when he refuses to look over at her.

Gai's cheeks grow a brighter red and he chops even faster, the blade of his knife blurring as he cuts about three times as many onions as they actually need. He seems dead set on not looking at her.

"I will puncture your lung with this spoon if I need to," she says.

He stiffens. "I just…"

She holds the spoon aloft, letting the threat linger.

"I feel as if I am dreaming," he mumbles. Briefly, he looks at her, and then focuses back on the onions. "I spent so long having to remind myself that when I turned around, you were not going to be there. It startles me sometimes, now, when you are."

"Oh," she says.

She can understand the feeling, especially with her hair grown out almost to her shoulders, longer than it was allowed to be during the war. Sometimes when she looks in the mirror in the mornings after getting all made up, what stares back, in its weird mishmash of Haruko and Ama, soft and sharp and short and long, startles her.

 _Imposter_ , her mind will whisper.

She doesn't have the heart to contradict it.

"It is silly," he says.

"No. No, I wouldn't say so."

"Really?"

"Yeah," she says. "It's only natural that you'll trip up sometimes while you work on adjusting your reality. This world has a nasty way of crashing through mental constructs like a w—a—sake-drunk s—sport mom."

'Wine-drunk soccer mom' is what she wanted, but by the time she realized that the concept and some of the words don't exist in this world, she was in too deep to stop.

Gai fumbles with his knife. "What?"

"What?" she says.

The look he gives her, formed of confusion, distress, and a hint of wariness, is one that she hasn't gotten in a very long time.

It makes her laugh a real, genuine laugh. It's a tinkling sound that slips out without thought and is something that's entirely _hers_.

She feels warm.

The second the realization hits her, up her walls go. She can see the fireball coming from a mile away. She's too wary to take another burn—it's been a few weeks since the fire consumed her but she still bears the marks on her soul.

Lazily almost, the fireball floats towards her and splatters itself over the glass. It lacks intensity or any follow it up. Just a single, wimpy, malformed fireball, here to remind her of the dangers that come in the wake of icky human emotions.

She remembers what Nonou had called emotions during one of her lessons: a nuisance of nature that deserves only as much considerations as required to use them against an enemy.

She found it odd that somebody who showed so much emotion could say such a thing. Hypocritical, even. She knows now that it wasn't true—Nonou was just far better than Haruko was at this whole portrayal thing. A master of the art.

For so long, she felt fortunate to have studied under the tutelage of a virtuoso.

She watches the sparks left by the fireball sputter out on the pristine white floor. Unconsciously, she stares down at the marred form she inhabits in this mindscape. A million lightning bolts shaped scars carved into her skin, a tale of the storm she's walked through. A mass of mottled skin, bright red where the last inferno razed her, deeper maroon from her first days back in the village, where the burns have had a chance to settle. A handful of spots where her skin is charred black by frost.

And when she raises her hand to touch her face, her jaw-length hair brushing against her forearm, all she can feel is the smooth porcelain.

The sound of the pot boiling over snaps her out of her mindscape.

She goes to pull the lid off before too much of the frothing water can spill out, but when her fingers touch the top of the lid, the scorching metal burns her hand. She rips her hand away and sends the lid toppling off of the pot. This is good in that it gives the noodles a chance to simmer down, but bad in that the commotion sends a handful of water flying onto the wok and creates a watermelon-sized ball of fire.

She doesn't scream. Gai does.

With her good hand, she reaches over and turns off the heat for both the noodles and the wok. The fire sputters out on its own.

Gai flaps his arms furiously to clear the smoke. She stands back, running her hand under warm water to take the sting from the burn.

As expected, the beef is completely scorched and probably inedible.

"It, um…" Gai pokes the charred meat. "It will have character!"

She looks to the meat, to her burned hand, and sighs. "How unfortunate."

"It appears that we will—" Gai cuts off, looking at her hand. He gasps. "You are hurt!"

"Yeah," she murmurs. "Yeah, I am."

The burn is surprisingly painful. Already, she can see a couple of blisters forming on the tips of her fingers, where most of the contact was made. The rest of her hand is bright red and shiny.

It takes her a minute to register the sight, longer for her mind to wrap around it. That's not supposed to be there.

"I will get the first aid kit!"

"It's not a big deal," she says. "I'll just wrap it in a warm cloth."

But he's not listening.

He marches towards her with an obnoxious red bag and she realizes that there is no option here other than to just let him do it.

So, when he pulls out bandages and ointment, she dutifully holds out her hand and allows him to dab at it and wrap it and treat it like an actual injury. She sits on the floor, cross-legged. He kneels in front of her, bent over her hand, so deeply focused on his task that he could be performing a life-altering surgery for all she knows.

It takes ten minutes—twice as long as any normal person would have taken—before he sits back on his heels and declares it done.

"Thank you," she says.

His mouth does a weird twitching thing, like the entire rest of his face prepared itself for him to start speaking and at the last moment, his lips just refused to follow through. He hurriedly shoves everything back into the kit and tosses it in the bathroom.

She examines her hand. The pain is gone.

She has no idea what he put on there, but it took out all of the sting, almost as if it was never there to start with. She wiggles her fingers to test and still, nothing.

As he comes back into the living room, she asks, "What did you use?"

"Ah," he says. "Just some regular burn cream."

"It worked well," she murmurs. "Really well."

"That is good to hear!" He gives her his signature blinding grin. "Now, I shall go and get us sustenance!"

Gai flies out of the house, slamming the door shut behind him. A second later, he barges back inside and sprints right past her and into his room. He has something in his hand when he comes back out—his wallet—and then he's gone again.

Dazed, she pokes at the bandages. She feels a twinge of pain, a mere fraction of what she expects from a fresh burn.

She smiles to herself.

Rather than sit around while Gai gets their dinner, she picks herself up and walks towards the kitchen, intent on having it clean for when he gets back. It's the least she can do. And maybe one day, if she tries hard enough, she'll be able to pay him back for all of the things he'll never realize he's given her.

* * *

"This behaviour is unacceptable, Ama."

"I'm sorry, my lord."

"That is irrelevant. Your apology will not change your failure."

"I know, my lord."

She sits on one knee with her head bowed, and she dares not move a single muscle as Danzo speaks, flanked by two other agents.

"Weakness will not be tolerated," Danzo says. "A dull blade is of no use to me."

She holds her tongue.

Danzo lets out a short breath. "There will be no repeat of this. If you ever return to the village rather than finish a fight again, you will be killed. Am I understood?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Good."

Off he walks, and she hears the other agents approach to administer her punishment.

Which is fine by her.

This, she can easily take. A short tongue lashing and the usual physical beatings? That's of no concern to her. She's grown used to this, unlike her true failing.

Everything was going fine for a while. She was dispatched to find a wealthy iron merchant from River Country that was starting to gouge Konoha with their prices. It was an easy mission—kill the father and son so that the business could be passed on to a different relative who would be more amenable to deals with the village. In fact, the person who tipped the village off was one such relative.

She killed the father without any trouble. He was an older man who slept alone, allowing for a clean hit. The son, though? He was young. Far younger than she was expecting.

He couldn't be older than eight years old and looked so much like Gai did at that age that it knocked the breath clear out of her chest.

She knew immediately that she couldn't kill him.

So, she turned around and walked away without a second thought. She made up a story about enemy ninja crawling all over the place, making it impossible for her to get to the son. Whatever punishment Danzo had in store for her was worth it.

She expected to feel worse about lying to Danzo than she did. She didn't feel _good_ about it—part of her rebelled at the very thought, hated that she even considered it an option. But now, there was a larger part of her that couldn't stand the idea of Danzo knowing that her weakness lay in her brother.

If Danzo found out, he could weaponize it. And _that_ wasn't something she would allow.

She's loath to give Danzo something else of hers when he's already taken so much, least of all something so precious.

She gets her beatings and goes home to her brother.

This time, when he greets her, she has no problem meeting his gaze head-on with a smile of her own.

* * *

"Ah. Here we are again."

Minato leans against the railing, having taken the stairs up the Hokage Monument like a normie where most ninja shunshin up. "Again?" he asks. "I don't think we've ever met up here."

She levels him with a look and he laughs as if she's told a rousing joke.

The evening sun reflects off his hair and makes it seem like it's made of gold. His bright blue eyes glow. He's wearing casual clothes, a white t-shirt and black pants, though his headband remains on, peeking out from beneath his bangs. It's one of the few times she's seen him out of his jonin blues and the sight is downright unnerving.

He walks towards her, and she turns back towards the view of the village, bathed in the dim light of a sun that's well on its way to setting. She's too high up to make out any people or buildings; it's just one singular being, to her.

"You were surprisingly difficult to find," he says, sitting himself down across from her. He blocks out her view of the village. "I don't think I've ever seen you come up here."

He props his chin on his palm, rests his elbow on his knee, and starts drawing in the dirt with his free hand. He doesn't look down at what he's doing.

She does, unabashedly, and is unsurprised that he's preparing a privacy seal.

She's content to let him. If this is going where she thinks it's going—the only place it could go, really—it's advantageous for her if the conversation is kept a secret. What he might gain from the privacy is a mystery to her.

"I don't come up here much," she says. "I've got better spots."

"But?"

"No 'but'," she says. "I was wandering around and I... found myself here." She shrugs. "I guess this is why when we were younger, Gai always insisted on holding my hand when we walked through the village."

It's been a long time since she allowed herself to get lost like this. She had left to escape the silence of the house since Gai was still at training for the rest of the day, and the wanderlust hit her. She started walking. She didn't look where, think about why, she just went wherever her feet carried her, picking flowers on the way.

She thinks she'll do it more often. The peacefulness nesting in her chest is too comfortable not to.

"Well, I'll still keep this spot in mind the next time I look for you."

"You don't see enough of me at training?"

"That's only once a week, and you spend most of your time with Kushina," he says. "I only get you for five or ten minutes a week. That's hardly enough time to talk."

His index finger touches the edge of the seal and he pushes chakra into it. She can feel the seal come to life. If she were to guess, she'd say it encompasses a ten-foot circle around the two of them, but it's difficult to tell for certain without the visual boundary.

"This seal is a bit less ideal," he says. "It's more basic. I can't control over what anybody listening will hear, the cost of not being able to set things up beforehand." He smiles at her. "But I suppose I just have to work with what I can."

She studies him.

He seems completely relaxed, unlike last time. What's different this time? Is it that he thinks he might have an edge over her since he surprised her? Does he have information now that he didn't then?

"Now that you have me," she says, leaning towards him. She's fiddling with a flower crown in her lap, twisting and twining the stems in as elaborate a design as their weak forms can handle. "Why don't you go ahead and ask me questions that I'm not going to answer."

"Alright." He sighs. "Are you… are you safe?"

She blinks. The flower crown drops from her fingers and she can feel her face slip, but she doesn't make any move to put it back together.

Of the things he could have opened with, the questions he could have asked, this is absolutely not what she was expecting, and it sets her right off her guard.

"Oh, that…" He scratches the back of his head. "That probably wasn't the best way to open," he mutters.

She watches him, unwilling to open her mouth until she can regain her bearings in this decidedly stupid conversation.

"Okay. Let's start like this: I know that something is going on."

"Something is always going on."

"Something that has you going on off-the-record visits outside the village gates?"

She knits her eyebrows together, racking her brain for any time that he was trailing her while she left for a mission.

She always leaves at night. And while feeling out whether there's anybody behind her is more difficult when she can't see as well, with Minato's track record, she would have been able to notice him following her.

It dawns on her.

She would have noticed him with how obvious he always was—if he always _was_ that obvious.

In hindsight, it was rather arrogant of her to assume that he would allow her even the brief glimpses that he did while he followed her. It was well done. He never fully revealed himself, no glaring flaws in his technique, just gave her enough pieces that she might know he was there, following a short ways behind her.

"You're sneakier than I gave you credit for," she murmurs.

He smiles at her, but it feels hollow. "You're skilled, Haruko, but I'm a bit out of your league—give it a few years."

She nods. "Just how often have you been following me?"

"Enough that I'm concerned."

"About me?"

He considers. "About what you're doing."

How much can she say? How much _should_ she say? Clearly, her files have been kept improperly updated. If she were to guess, she'd say it's to conceal what she's doing, which she doesn't blame the village for. They have an important reputation to uphold.

The approachable and 'friendly' reputation that Konoha displays to the civilian world is at the center of their economic health. Merchants from all over the world, enemy countries included, need to feel safe crossing the gates of Konoha for trade, or the village will crumble. There are technicalities in place and gazes turned away to allow the economy to thrive because if the economy is in poor shape, so too is Konoha. They're far too large to subside entirely on the work their ninja do.

And what Ama does? Killing diplomats and merchants who cross the village, not showing leniency to even those who reside within the Land of Fire? That could be detrimental. If Konoha's willing to kill its own citizens, what's to stop them from murdering those who are technically their enemies?

Nothing is, of course. But they can't know that.

And she doesn't think Minato can, either.

"I'm not working against the village," she says.

"I never said you were."

"Then what _do_ you think I'm doing?"

"I don't know yet," he admits. "I was hoping you might enlighten me."

She sits upright and holds herself loosely, like a puppet with lax strings, propped up without emphasis in any part of her posture. "You've read my file."

"I have."

"But you haven't _read_ my file."

He frowns at this.

She doesn't know where the line is, here.

 _Can I trust him?_

Haruko did. Ama doesn't.

But that shouldn't be her angle—she should only think about what it'll take to get him off of her back. That's all that matters. She should divulge enough information to reassure him, but not enough to tip him off of anything else. That's what Danzo would want of her.

"My trips have all been sanctioned," she says. "It's not in my general file, it's—"

"Haruko," he says, and it sends chills down her spine. "I have access to both versions of your file—redacted and unredacted. There's nothing in either to indicate that you were taking those trips."

She falls into a befuddled silence. She notes, uneasily, as he works his jaw, that he's visibly agitated.

It's funny.

All at once, she finds herself reminded of the fact that one of the most powerful ninja in the village, second to only a handful of people, is sitting across from her. It's not what he said that does it—it's how he said it. How he can promise a raging storm in his voice, turning the air around him metallic and tangy and charged like the seconds before lightning strikes the ground.

She wonders how many people forget that even the softest of summer clouds can turn static. She hadn't thought she would be counted among that number, yet here she is. Minato has a way of doing that to her.

Without thinking, she leans back.

"I need you to swear to me that you won't breathe a word of this anybody," Minato says. "No matter what. This has to stay _here_."

"I swear," she says.

She knows it's not necessarily a promise that she can keep. Yet, the second they leave her mouth that, it resonates through her very soul. She has no intention of telling anybody about this conversation unnecessarily, at the very least.

"I was given access to your whole file," he says. "Lord Hokage allowed me access when I mentioned some of the… oddities with you and your situation since coming back to the village"

"Oh."

"As far as the village is concerned, you've now left the walls on three separate occasions for one to two weeks at a time to do who knows what. Combining that with the fact that you spent a lot of time in enemy territory under deep cover? It doesn't look good."

She notes that his list is missing another seemingly important factor. "And I guess it didn't help that people thought I was dead?"

Minato hesitates a hair too long before answering, "Yes, that too."

How wonderfully suspicious.

"You think I'm a traitor," she says, opting to keep the conversation moving instead of chasing what she knows will be a brick wall.

"I don't," he says. "But there are some who do."

"Who?"

"The Konoha Council," he says. "A handful of other high up ninja—those that are aware that this is a situation—like my teacher."

 _Danzo._

Something uncomfortably cold settles in her gut. "And you want me to tell you what's actually going on so you can prove my loyalty."

"Ideally."

She closes her eyes, a short breath fluttering out of her. "I can't tell you anything more."

"Can't or won't?"

And isn't that the kicker.

The cold blossoms outwards, creeping out over her whole body.

She flexes her fingers, imagining the feeling of glass against her palm, the sturdiness of it. The walls don't crack, but they shudder beneath the force of the blizzard. Wreaths of ice cloud the glass.

Danzo set her up.

If that wasn't the case, then this conversation wouldn't be happening in the first place. He would have included her missions in her records, told the Hokage about them, done _something_ that could give her credibility.

He hasn't. He's allowed her to be seen as a possible traitor.

She can see that clearly. So why does she still hesitate?

Her throat tightens.

She knows that she can't tell Minato anything due to the seal. But that's not all that's stopping her, otherwise she could have simply said that she _can't_ answer. She could have told the truth—as much of it as she can divulge.

Yet, her silence is because she _won't_ answer. Why, even now, does she feel the need to obey? Why does she still want to protect him?

Why does she continue to hide behind the walls that he built her to need?

Minato's face softens. "Haruko," he says. "I'm not the enemy." He pauses. "At least… I'm not _your_ enemy. I'm not trying to be. Please, I just want to help you."

But she shakes her head. "I don't have any answers for you, Minato."

She goes to get up, but he grabs her wrist. It's a weak hold—she could break it.

She doesn't.

"This is going to catch up with you," he warns. "You can't keep avoiding this."

"Don't underestimate me," she says. She ends it off with a smile and a laugh. "I'm quite good at avoiding my problems."

She watches the conflict work through Minato's posture. His grip on her tightens. His eyes close, he lets out a breath. "When you change your mind," he says, "come find me."

"Already assuming I will?"

He holds her gaze, not saying a word.

Fine, then. "We'll see," she says.

His expression stiffens, his lips purse, and she feels his grip tighten again.

But then he lets go.

She stands up and steps away, far enough that she's confident she's out of the bounds of the privacy seals, leaving the flower crown on the ground, abandoned. She waits to see if he'll say something else. He has a hunger in his face that speaks of dissatisfaction.

He says nothing.

She walks away, leaving him alone atop the Hokage Monument.

* * *

AN: Special thanks to **Sage Thrasher** and **Frolic** for their beta work on this chapter!

So thank you to all of you who were so wonderfully supportive in your reviews on the last chapter. I tried to get back to as many of you as I could, but apologies to those who didn't get a reply.

First off: I want to get this out of the way first, for those who don't want to read the big block o' text below. The next chapter will be out in two weeks guaranteed because it's actually already written, it just needs some editing/to be beta read. And the next-next chapter is currently halfway done, so I feel comfortable promising to have that chapter out on schedule, as well. **So expect updates on March 9th and 23rd!**

Second off: Unfortunately, I do have one more mini soapbox moment really quick, but I swear this will be the last time I talk about this kind of thing. I just want to make a note on something that I think some people genuinely don't understand.

There's a difference between opinions and criticism. A big part of that? All opinions are valid, all criticisms are not.

Every person is entitled to have their opinion and have zero need to justify them. Don't like something? That's totally okay! Love something? That's also okay! Your opinion is your opinion and nobody can tell you that it is invalid. However, the same can't be said about criticisms. Criticism can be invalid.

Criticism can also be either constructive or unconstructive. How to know which yours is? Look at your criticism and ask yourself whether or not the writer can actively improve themselves with what you have written. Does it have examples of what is wrong? Is it respectful and written in good faith? Is it well thought out? If the answer to all of those is "yes", then you have something constructive.

As well, it's also worth noting that a few people seem to have confused the difference between criticism and opinion. Here's an easy way to figure out if you've just levelled an author with criticism or an opinion: if the ultimate "why" of what you've just said is "I did not like it", then it's an opinion.  
For criticism, if you give an example of something bad in a fic and your "why" is something like "this isn't coherent" or "this is unrealistic", then you might have a valid criticism on your hands.

And at this point (if anybody is still reading) I'm sure you're asking yourself, "Iaso, where are you going with this?"

Here's where I'm going. If you give me a _valid_ and _constructive_ criticism that is written respectfully and with the intent to help me improve as an author, yes, I absolutely will give what you have said due thought. If you give me an _invalid_ and _unconstructive_ criticism or an opinion that is being written in bad faith, there's a good chance I'm going to disregard it. And I can tell you right now, there are a lot of authors who share the same thought process.

So, yeah. I feel like this is just kind of... something important to talk about? Like I think a lot of authors are afraid to discuss these kinds of things because they don't want to risk the backlash from people in reviews, but just from some people I talked to, I realized that not a lot of people don't know the difference. And if this can be helpful to anybody currently reading, then it was worth the ten minutes this took me to type up, lmao.


	11. Rock A Bye Baby

_._

* * *

 _Hush a bye baby up in the sky,_

 _on a soft cloud, it's easy to fly._

 _Angels keep watch over as you sleep,_

 _so hush a bye baby, don't make a peep._

* * *

She points down at a teenaged boy walking by, wearing a pair of what seem like oversized shutter glasses and a plain brown coat. "Look at those glasses."

Kakashi makes a noise of annoyance over the dango in his mouth. "Stupid," he says. "He probably can't even see with those things on."

"Who needs to see when you have fashion?"

"Would you be saying that when an enemy stabbed you in the heart?"

"Yes."

He rolls his eyes, and she looks away so he can lift his mask to take another bite.

She focuses on picking ninja out of the crowd.

It all started two hours ago on the way home from training. All she did was make a single comment about how nice some girl's skirt was and of course, Kakashi being Kakashi, had to turn it into an overdrawn lecture. She can imagine Kakashi writing _Ninja Clothes for Dummies_ and giving it to every single person he came across—or every idiot, in his eyes. She doesn't think there's much of a difference for him.

Then it became a game. At that point, it was decided that civilians didn't count in this conversation because civilians don't need to bother with silly things like protecting vital organs or being able to dodge giant water dragons. They can wear whatever they want.

Ninja are different. Ninja have to fight. And, if you ask Kakashi, ninja need to have some concept of 'practical clothing choices', for some reason.

"What about her?" she asks.

"She's fine. That vest looks like it's reinforced, so she'll be able to take a hit."

"But it's also the ugliest blue I've seen in my life."

"That colour of blue blends in well at night."

"Ugly is ugly."

"Dead is dead."

They stare at each other, at an impasse.

Kakashi breaks his gaze first. "He'd live through a lot, too," he says, pointing at an older man.

Well, older for a ninja at any rate. Probably somewhere in his early-to-mid thirties, leaning against a stand with little trinkets, his eyes glued to his watch. He's got a pack slung over his shoulder. About to leave on a mission and waiting for teammates, she'd guess.

"The jacket is pretty cool," she says. He's got on what she would call a black cropped trench coat with matte silver embellishments. "The silver is nice on it."

"Not the jacket. Look at what's under it."

"A grey shirt?"

" _Under_ the grey shirt."

"You've never told me that you can see through things." She pokes his cheek. "Can you teach me?"

He scoffs, swatting at her hand. "I don't have to—look at how it's fitting him. Does that look like a regular chest, to you?"

She squints to get a better look and lo and behold, she can make out what he's talking about. Bits of the shirt don't sit right, and not in the way one would expect. The dips and bumps don't fit with the natural topography of a chest.

"A chest plate?" she guesses.

"Looks like it. Probably leather with only key sections lined with metal so it doesn't impede movement too much—I've seen them inside shops."

"I've never seen those."

"You say that like you'd ever actually look at proper armour."

She smiles. "Touche."

"That guy's the same as you," Kakashi says. He points to somebody far to the right of the rooftop they're sitting on. "Never heard of practical clothes. He's shirtless—that's asking to be stabbed. Or punched. Or hit with literally anything. No armour means nothing to keep you from being dead in one shot."

She follows his finger to a young man, probably in his early twenties, in nothing but fur-lined shorts, fur-covered bracelets, and ninja sandals. A shaggy white dog the side of a bicycle trots along beside him.

"He's an Inuzuka," she says.

"That's no excuse. He's practically begging an enemy to kill him."

"I don't disagree, but I'm also not complaining about him not wearing a shirt."

He turns to look at her, clearly not understanding. She meets his gaze.

It takes him a little bit, but she can tell when he figures it out because he scowls and says, "Gross."

She plucks a piece of dango from his stick and pops it into her mouth. "Sexual attraction is very useful and natural."

"Whatever."

"What about her," she says, gesturing at a woman wearing nothing but black undergarments underneath fishnets.

Kakashi looks to where she's pointing. He goes bright red and chokes on his dango at the sight, and she pats him on the back.

"Now, now," she says. "It's just the female body."

Through his coughs, he glares at her.

"I'm sure you'll see one properly, one day." She thinks on it. "Well, maybe. I don't know how you swing. Or if you even go up to bat in the first place."

"What are—" Cough. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing to concern your innocent little head with."

He makes a disgusted noise and tosses his now empty dango stick like a senbon. It flies through the air and embeds itself in the book shop opposite of them, between the 'i' and 'n' of a sign that reads "Bingo Books" in fluorescent orange lettering.

She gives him a clap of appreciation.

Because he has to look so smug over it, she shoves the last two bites of her dango in her mouth at once and throws her own stick. A bit of chakra in the throw for strength and another bit in her eyes for accuracy sends the stick flying fast and true, splitting Kakashi's through the middle in its journey to the sign.

Kakashi frowns. "Since when are you good with thrown weapons?"

"Since always," she says.

He gives her a look of grudging respect. It doesn't last long.

Kakashi turns his attention back to the crowd below them and points out somebody else. She gives her comment and the whole thing starts back up again.

She sits there, swinging her legs back and forth over the ledge, with the roar of the people below them and the steady chatter between her and Kakashi, and finds that she's content to stay here for the rest of the night.

* * *

Ama stands in front of the old mahogany desk and watches as the woman sitting at it writes out a note for her husband to find in a few hours. The woman has a packed bag sitting at her feet and is dressed for travel.

The woman is Manaka Yoshikawa. She is, by all accounts, is a harmless twenty-three-year-old housewife with a son who she loves dearly and a husband that she's happily married to. Young and beautiful, she really does have a picture perfect life from the outside.

A shame that she won't have it for much longer.

Manaka works without acknowledging Ama, which she can't do because she's ten feet deep into Ama's genjutsu. Right now, as she scribbles out her message, she's convinced that a dear friend of hers is on her deathbed and if she does not get there soon, her friend will die before she can say goodbye.

Ama doesn't know what Manaka did to earn the Konoha's ire. She didn't read the information pack the agent provided her with past the first couple of paragraphs.

As it turned out, she didn't need any of if. There are no ninja here, waiting in the wings to attack. No important politicians or nobles people to trick. It's just a simple village in the backwater of Earth Country, with simple people like Manaka.

The mission has been a painfully easy one so far, and she doesn't see it getting complicated anytime soon. Truly, with how flawlessly this has all gone off, it should be a reason to celebrate.

Ama stifles a yawn and watches Manaka finish up.

 _Now I must hurry_ , she whispers into the Manaka's mind. _I won't bother with a carriage. Her house is a day's walk from here. I'll go on foot._

Manaka drops the pen into the ink pot and stands up from the desk, grabbing at her bag as she does. "I have to hurry," she says. "She lives a day away. I'll just walk. The next carriage doesn't leave for another couple of hours, and it doesn't go directly to her village—it'll take almost as long, anyway. Might as well save money."

How helpful that she's is doing Ama's work for her by rationalizing the genjutsu.

Ama steps aside and lets Manaka breeze past.

Manaka marches through the tiny mining village with a purpose, waving people off and shouting simple explanations as she goes, promising to fill them in more when she's back. That might be a bit problematic, depending on how people interpret her not returning. Though the rumour mill is always an option. If Ama wants to be really thorough, she could come back in a week and start spreading stories of Manaka leaving to be with a lover. That's always a safe bet.

She won't do it, but the thought is there.

Ama gives Manaka a couple of hours on the road. She's curious to see where Manaka goes. At this point, the genjutsu is ended, but the aftereffect of it has left Manaka convinced that there was truth in her delusions. Partially due to lingering chakra in her brain, partially a symptom of having somebody else spend four hours repeatedly and forcefully altering your perception of reality.

Once they get to a good spot, though, after a few forked roads and fun trysts through unworn paths, Ama slides her chakra back into Manaka's mind and shuts it down with a handful of harsh burst in the right spots.

Manaka pitches forward and falls to the ground gracelessly.

It's a useful technique, if a finicky one. It's precise—placing your chakra and detonating it just so to rupture key parts of the brain and cause instantaneous death. Civilians are easier targets for it, because they lack the defences against chakra intrusion that ninja tend to form naturally as they grow stronger. Getting a ninja with it takes more chakra, time, and control. It's far riskier. The only time she can ever recall using it against a ninja mid-battle was when she got ambushed and had no other option—hands tied up with a seal, caught off-guard, all that. And even then she had the advantage of already having wound her chakra up in his brain to cast an illusion on him, which is why she thinks it worked out for her. She doubts she'll ever do it again unless it's an emergency.

But it's her go-to for taking out civilians when she wants to give them a quick and painless death.

Ama leaves Manaka starfished on the road and uses a quick wind jutsu to slice the body open. The scent will attract predators within the hour if the yips of wolves she's been hearing from the forest is anything to go by. Animals will ravage the body and if anybody finds it, they'll assume some poor woman who was out on her own was attacked by the wildlife and killed.

Satisfied, Ama heads back towards the village, ready to get out of her black outfit and into something a bit more comfortable.

.

.

Danzo reads her mission report across from her.

There are no other agents in the room. It's just Ama and Danzo, Ama sat kneeling at his feet while Danzo silently peruses the report written only twenty minutes before. She had wanted to simply give an oral report, but Danzo had insisted on having her write it down. Now she sees why. She doubts Danzo ever misses an opportunity to exert his power.

Despite everything that she suspects now after her conversation with Minato, Ama still finds herself wanting Danzo to approve of what she did. She hopes that when she's allowed to stand and look at him, he'll have a hint of a smile. He'll show her approval.

She couldn't have cared less for the entirety of her mission but now that she's standing here, boxed in by these concrete walls and Danzo's overwhelming presence, Ama craves his approval.

And that's what Ama gets.

"Stand, Ama."

She does. She rights herself and it's the first thing she notices. The lines in his face are tilted up, the corners of his lips higher than usual. She realizes how slight the differences are from his usual expression. If she weren't looking for it, she wouldn't see it.

"You did well," Danzo says. "Your village is grateful for your service."

"Thank you, my lord."

He nods. "It is good of you to show me that your worth has not disappeared entirely. I had begun to doubt you, given your recent missions, but you have shown that your uses exist still."

The praise is slight—to many, it wouldn't even count as such. It's more an admission that he sees her as a tool than anything else. That to him, she has no inherent worth outside of how nicely she bloodies her hands while in his service.

And it makes her heart soar. That crevice in her fills, and she can breathe more easily than before, a weight lifted from her chest and shoulders.

Like a dog, she performs her trick and takes the treat from his palm, knowing that he'd throw her in the cold hungry without a second thought while he lays in his soft, warm bed, if she did not obey.

How many of his dogs have bitten his hand? How many lived through the decision?

"I am happy to serve, my lord," she says, the words chafing her throat as she pushes them out.

And that's that; Danzo sweeps out of the room.

Ama stands there in his wake, wondering how many more backhands she'll take before she snaps.

* * *

She stands out in the dark of night.

Gai is asleep in his bed at home, which is what she should be doing, too. She was for most of the night, where she dreamed of dancing and smiling, two things she doesn't associate with each other all that often anymore. She was content to stay there until she heard it.

Rain.

Banging against her window panes was the first rain of the year.

She threw on the first dress she saw, slipped on a pair of sandals, grabbed a random umbrella from beside the door, and headed outside.

Like with her trip to the Hokage Monument, she didn't think about anywhere in particular—she just started walking and let her feet take her wherever they desired. The end result has her standing in front of the empty bridge and the gentle river, tucked away in a tiny residential civilian area of the village.

The air is bitter and cold. The smell, though, is anything but. The sweet petrichor is better than she remembered.

The rain pitters and patters against the dirt, the river hums along as the water slides over rocks and silt alike.

She twists the umbrella around.

Something cool lands on her shoulder and she looks down at it. Through a tiny hole in the top of the umbrella, a droplet of water fell through and splattered on her shoulder, leaving its mark on her ivory skin. Another one quickly follows.

She pulls her foot out of her sandal and dips her big toe in one of the newly formed puddles. The water is icey, like its seconds away from freezing over, and it's uncomfortable. She brushes it against the water's surface again anyways.

It's uncomfortable. She doesn't mind it.

She puts her sandal back on and closes her eyes, listening to the world around her sing as the rain pounds its beat, a million miny mallets beating against their drums.

She missed the rain.

With the coming of spring only a few weeks away, she hopes that more will follow.

* * *

It starts with a masked agent slipping through her window and interrupting her dinner.

Her spoon hovers in the air, midway to her mouth. "A mission?" she asks. "This soon?"

"Yes," the agent says. "Come. Lord Danzo requires your presence immediately."

She sets her spoon back into her bowl and stares at it mournfully. Noodles, procured from the best stand in the village, still fresh. They'll have to wait until later. She'll get her mission, then come back and eat them. If she's lucky, the meeting will be fast and the noodles still be hot for her.

She runs into her room and slips on her uniform and mask, then follows the agent across the village to the main entrance of the bunker.

After a five minute trip through the silent hallways, the agent stops in front of one of the many unlabelled doors. She goes to open it, but the agent puts a hand out to stop her. She steps back. The agent knocks on the door once, a sharp drum of fist against metal.

Dread pools in her gut. There's only one person that requires this type of procedure.

"Send her in," a muffled voice calls.

The agent opens the door and gestures for her to go inside.

She walks inside, takes a few steps, and then drops to one knee with her head bowed, an order of actions ingrained in her to the point of muscle memory.

"Ama," Danzo says. "You may stand."

She lifts herself up on unsteady legs. "Thank you, my lord."

Danzo nods to the agents on either side of him and says, "Leave us. You have other matters to attend to, tonight."

"Yes, my lord," two voices chorus, one male and one female.

And then she's alone with him.

"I have a mission of utmost importance, Ama," Danzo says. "One that is invaluable to securing the stability of this village."

"I am honoured to help the village in whatever way I can, my lord."

"As you should be." He settles his arms behind his back. "This mission will be your last."

Her breath stutters in her chest.

"You will be sent out to intercept a group of Konoha ninja who are currently on a mission in the northern part of the Land of Wind," he says. "You will don a Sunagakure headband and attack them under the guise of being an enemy ninja, and allow them to kill you."

She ignores the fact that Danzo has proven her suspicions about him right in less ten seconds.

She ignores the fact that he is about to send her on a suicide mission.

Her focus hones in on figuring out exactly what he is trying to do with this plan. Just two weeks ago, Suna and Konoha signed a treaty that would end the fighting between them. They weren't allies—it was merely a ceasefire while Suna recovered and Konoha turned their attention towards Iwa and Kumo.

"My lord… isn't that…" Her words fail her. The instinct to take her orders without thought, drilled in over four years, clogs her throat and makes her choke on the words.

But something in her pushes back, a something that wonders how long it takes a bird to suffocate in a glass box.

She breathes in, ignoring how difficult it is to fill her lungs, and in a carefully steady voice, she says, "My lord, isn't that going to make the war harder for the village?"

Danzo smiles. It's an ugly look. "Yes," he says. "It will make the war much more difficult."

"But, how—"

"Some things must break to be remade stronger, Ama." His gaze hardens. "Your sacrifice will allow me to have a better grasp of the village. You will help cement the future of this village."

The future of the village? Or, _his_ future in the village?

She keeps expecting to feel the heat of the inferno or the chill of the blizzard, or hear the cracks of glass fracturing around her. But it doesn't come. Instead, when she raises her hand to the box around her, she discovers an unexpected consequence—beneath her fingertips, the glass feels brittle and weak.

It's only her own strength holding the box together, now.

"I understand, my lord," she says. "I will take this mission."

"Yes, you will. You are required to leave before sunrise tomorrow. Following this meeting, an agent will brief you with the location of where the Konoha ninja will have their mission. They will give you a timeline to accompany it so that you may best plan out your attack, as well as the Sunagakure headband that you are required to have on your person."

Danzo strides towards the door. When he's about to pass her, he stops and places a firm hand on her shoulder. "You cannot fail," he tells her. "Show me that you have been worth my time. Show me that your last success was not a fluke."

Like a tidal wave, she's hit with a flood of memories from her other life. They build a coherent narrative, a set strung together to remind her of the fact that there was no freedom in the life she lived as a professional ballerina.

The harbinger of her doom was her first agent. He noted her potential, saw dollar signs where she sought joy, and took her for all she was worth.

He made her career, in the end. He clawed and scratched to put her up on the very top without caring that in the process, she came out empty. Frankly, with the ability to look back on the whole thing with a literal different pair of eyes, she realizes that the damage done to her was no accident. Without the extra weight of her soul to drag her down she could spin faster and jump higher, wowing any crowd he put her in front of.

She thought that the end justified the means, then. She never fought him, not when he knocked meals from her hands or disallowed her from seeing her friends and family in favour of extra time in the studio. She let the abuse happen.

Now, it's Danzo cranking the wheel on her music box as he whispers, _Dance, little ballerina, dance_.

And at this moment, she realizes that she'd rather die than allow somebody to get away with doing this to her again. Not this time. She will shatter the box and break the hand that saw fit to spin her on a whim.

She never thought of herself as weak—she was wrong. She is weak. She has been weak.

She will be weak no longer.

Her gaze pulls up from the floor and she stares straight at the wall, her chin raised. "Yes, my lord."

She will show him that her last success was no fluke, indeed. And he will regret that for however much longer his miserable life lasts.

.

.

She stumbles her way home.

It's dark and the streets are deserted. The briefing with the other agents took a couple of hours, long enough that most people who might have been milling about earlier have gone home. It's the middle of the week. For most, tomorrow holds chores and work to be well-rested for.

She's sure that Danzo expects her to be one of those people. He's an arrogant man. He'll assume his brainwashing stuck, and that she'll go home and sleep like a good little dog so that she can deliver herself to slaughter the next morning.

It scares her that a few months ago, she would have done it without protest.

The whole thing has her shaken. She's not paying any attention to the world around her until her shoulder bangs against the arm of somebody walking beside her. She stumbles back a step, startled.

"Hey," the man says. "Watch where you're goin'!"

She examines the man up and down. A stubble-filled chin, salt-and-pepper hair, a face full of wrinkles. His smith apron is still on and the gloves hang out of the front pocket.

She remembers him.

How could she not? He's the blacksmith she was talking to when she first met Minato. It's been years, but he looks the same—uncannily so.

She stares at him, he stares back, and she realizes that he doesn't recognize her.

"Weird brat," he mutters, shaking his head. "No damn manners."

He totters off, lugging a jangling toolbox with him.

It took her nine years, but she understands now why somebody might find comfort in a glass house. Glass houses bring with them a deceptive sense of security, especially when the first stone thrown doesn't shatter the walls around you.

She takes a shaky step forward, then another, and another. She continues towards her home, all the while contemplating how it'll feel to shatter her house.

.

.

Gai is waiting on the couch for her when she gets home.

She slipped in through her bedroom window and changed into normal clothes, just in case, and she's glad for it.

When she steps out of her room, he springs up and charges over to her, words flying out of his mouth. "Oh, there you are! I was concerned!" he says. He crushes her in a hug. In true Gai style, he lifts her off her feet, swinging her around. "I was not expecting you to be gone, and your dinner was still on the table. I am glad that you are okay."

She pats him on the back. "I'm fine."

He sets her down on her feet and she takes a step back.

Gai's eyebrows dip downwards briefly. "Why did you come through your bedroom? Why not the front door?" he asks. "And where were you?"

"It was nothing," she says. "Don't worry about it."

She goes to step around him and head towards the kitchen. Gai moves to the side, not allowing her past.

It's unfortunate that he's matured physically. He's both taller than her and wider than her, all while being faster than her, too. She has no way of getting past.

She quirks an eyebrow. "Yes?"

Gai frowns. "I am worried."

"I mean it," she says. "It's nothing."

"Where were you?" he asks.

She sees no reason to lie to him. "I was given a mission. I need to leave tomorrow, before sunrise."

"What is it?"

"Classified."

"Where is it?"

"Classified."

"Are you doing it alone, or were you given a team?"

She doesn't feel the need to say it for the third time.

Gai's frown deepens. "Haruko," he says. "I know that something is not right."

"Everything is fi—" She chokes on the word. "Fine," she wheezes. She clears her throat. "I promise. Don't worry about it."

His gaze flits all over her face.

She doesn't want him to find anything in there. This isn't his problem. It's hers, and maybe Minato's, and probably a few other people's, but definitely not Gai's. He shouldn't have to deal with any of this.

"I want to show you something," he says.

He grabs her hand and pulls her back into his bedroom, where he sits her down on the floor in front of his bed.

His bedroom is impeccable, unlike most other fourteen-year-old boys, ninja variety included. The bed is always made and the floor is kept devoid of dirty laundry. It's minimalistic, with a bed, a bed stand, and a rug in the middle. The plainness of the room is a holdover from when they were reliant on Dai's meagre income, but she figures it became natural after so long.

Gai settles down in front of her and lays on his stomach to get at something underneath the bed. He ends up pulling out a small cardboard box.

"You remember the picnic that we went on?" he says. "The last day that you, Dad, and I were together?"

"Of course."

Gai lifts up the lid on the box. She catches the smell of flowers, pungent and sharp.

"Dad brought this back when he returned from the frontlines," Gai murmurs.

He submerges both of his hands in the depths of the box and brings out a flower crown. The colours are faded, but she can make out that the crown in his hands was once a stellar sight of bright blues and rich purples. The crown she made for Dai all those years ago.

"You kept it," she whispers.

"I did. I have mine, too."

She stares at it, stunned. "Dad brought it back."

"He said that while he was at the frontlines, it reminded him of what he was fighting for," Gai says. When she breaks her gaze off of the crown and looks at Gai's face, she can see that he's welling up. "He wore it to your funeral. When he left, he gave it to me for safe keeping."

Gai holds it out to her.

She pushes her hands together and lets him slide it into her cupped hands. Spread over her palms, Haruko holds the delicate remains of what she once had: a single, withered tie to her life when her family was whole.

Would Dai be proud of her? Would he even recognize her?

She wants to say that yes, of course, he would be proud of her and recognize her no matter what twisted form she took. But that's not true. How could he be? Dai was strong, he was kind, but most of all, Dai was true. To himself and to those he loved. She hadn't been true for a very, very long time, not true enough that she could ever hold her head high beside her brother and father and feel fit to wear the Maito name.

A couple of teardrops fall onto the wilted petals. She feels them coming. She knows where they were come from. She doesn't try and stop them.

She never allowed herself to grieve, not after the first time she tried back in the hospital. Even in the months following she didn't try. Allowing herself to fully accept the fact that her father was dead had shattered her precarious balance like nothing else. And in her gut, she knew that even when her walls were strengthened by Danzo, her defences wouldn't have been enough to withstand the catastrophe awaiting her. It wasn't impossible; nothing could hold against a storm so strong.

That's just the nature of grief—it tears through walls like they're made of paper.

"It was… difficult to lose him," Gai says. "I had lost you, already. To lose somebody else so soon?" The tears fall from his eyes freely, now. He doesn't try and wipe them away. "I did not know what to do. I managed. I had precious people, still. Genma and Ebisu made sure I continued with my training. Choza watched over me. My rivalry with Kakashi was a valued distraction. Minato did his best to be present as much as he could." Gai shakes his head. "But it was not the same."

If she weren't afraid of damaging the flower crown, she would grab his hand, touch his knee, something. The best she can do is poke his knee with her toe.

Gai gives a watery laugh, smiling. "Getting you back was a blessing I cannot explain. I had never imagined…" He trails off. The smile dies. "I do not want to lose you again, Haruko."

And she doesn't want to go anywhere. Not without him.

Carefully, Gai pulls the crown from her hands and places it back in the box. Her eyes stay glued to it right up until Gai puts the lid back on and sets the box to the side.

She's still crying. It's a slow going stream, one tear here and another tear there, but she doesn't know if she'll be able to stop them anytime soon.

Gai bites the inside of his cheek, something she's never seen him do before.

Slowly, he reaches out for her. With one hand, he holds her wrist steady, and with the other, he begins to trace along the lines in her palm. "This one splits off into two lines. You are sensitive to people and you help them how you can."

The back of her eyes sting and she feels like somebody has their hand wrapped around her throat, intent on choking her.

His calloused finger presses against her life line. "This one shows that you have been through a lot," he mumbles. "It is broken into pieces. But still, it does not allow the breaks to stop it from moving forward."

The tears come harder, now.

"And… and this one shows that somebody you trusted has betrayed you."

"Gai—"

He grabs her other hand and holds it with the same level of deference as the flower crown. Again, he traces the lines of her palm, starting with her head line. The line curves across her palm like a lazy river winding around a countryside. "You are creative, spontaneous, and mischievous." His finger moves down and lands on the line that slashes straight from her thumb to her wrist. "You do not easily trust."

The thought of Gai learning to read palms after she left hits her like a knife in the gut and each word that leaves his mouth twists the handle.

"And this one," he says, following to the soft twists of her heart line, "says that in your heart, you are kind."

An odd, hiccuping dry sob leaves her mouth, and she forces herself to breathe.

He grips both of her wrists, one in each hand. His gaze remains fixed on her palms. "You like dango. Your favourite colour is pink. You always add too much soap to your laundry. You are too easily distracted to ever get through cooking a meal. You are funny and kind and—and…" He looks up at her with a face set in an unwavering determination, so true to himself that it sends tremors through her already precarious foundations. "You are my sister. You are important to me, no matter what. Whatever you are dealing with, I will help."

The flames and the ice rage against her glass house. The walls crack under the weight of the blows and shards litter the ground around her feet. Each breath she takes, the warmth of his hands around her wrists, his thumb pressed against her pulse, is punctuated by a crack.

 _Crack, crack, crack._

It's just her own will to holding the wall together, now. There's no Danzo—no Ama—to reinforce it, to turn the glass to crystalline steel.

 _Crack, crack, crack._

It won't last against this.

 _Crack, crack, crack._

And maybe… maybe that's okay.

 _Shatter._

Before the glass even has a chance to fall to pieces, the elements descend on her.

The heat scorches her. The cold leaves trails of frost along her skin.

The two elements rage like a tornado, circling her. The intensity of it whips the winds into a frenzy that buffets her hair and dress and pulls the air from her lungs. She sinks to her knees, her hands clutched against her chest, and she lands hard against the ground. She expects to feel the glass digging into her skin, but it's all been blown away.

Everything is getting blown away.

The fire and ice crash against each other as they continue to swell and she's trapped right in the eye of the storm, the tornado growing more intense each second that drags by.

She resigns herself to her fate.

And then the two elements clash midair, converging on each other with the vehemence of life-long rivals. The fire melts the ice, the ice smothers the fire, and suddenly all that's falling down onto Haruko are icey droplets of rain. She tilts her head up and lets them plop down onto her face.

Every inch of her the water touches is left raw and fresh. The mask melts. The scars on her body wash away like they were painted on her skin. The rain soaks her to the bone and fills the parts of her that were empty, left unfilled for so long that she forgot what it was like to move without a hole in her chest letting out a fraction of each breath she took.

Haruko's never felt so alive.

"I'm sorry," she says, her voice crackling like a dead leaf being stepped on.

She falls forward and Gai wraps his arms around her, holding her close.

She lets herself sob, releasing everything she's been bottling up since the day she stepped out the threshold of their safe little house and into a warzone she thought would leave her unscathed.

She lets herself recognize that she's hurting. She lets herself remember that no matter what Ama has done to her—what _Danzo_ has done to her—deep down, she has been, and always will be, Haruko Maito, even if she might not be the exact same Haruko Maito that she used to be. She lets herself _know_ that there's still a person inside of her that Dai would be proud of, somebody who can stand up to Danzo and do what's right for this village.

She lets herself take comfort in the fact that with Gai at her side, she'll never be alone.

* * *

A/N: Special thanks to **Sage Thrasher** , **Ruby** , and **MonsterCatMusicGirl** for their beta work on this chapter!

Also a couple of small disclaimer:  
1.) I am not my characters. Their problematic opinions and views of the world are not necessarily my own, even if I often pull from myself to write them.  
2.) I am also aware that the depiction of Haruko's old dance agent is not the norm, nor should it be. It's not meant to represent the whole - it's simply a part of her past that happened and has continued to affect her through to her next life, whether or not she consciously realized it.

Thank you all for your kind words and support, and as promised, the next chapter is fully written and will be posted for March 23rd! It's a fun one, with lots of ROOT-related questions getting their answers, so stay tuned!


	12. Ding Dong Bell

_._

* * *

 _What a naughty boy was that,_

 _to try to drown the poor pussy cat,_

 _who never did him any harm,_

 _but killed all the mice in the farmer's barn._

* * *

It's a while before she cries herself out.

But once she has, Haruko knows that she needs to get down to business. Her time is running out and if she doesn't do something fast, she's going to be stuck.

They're still in Gai's room together but they've shifted positions, now both laying on their backs, shoulder to shoulder. She stares up at the ceiling and folds her hands over her chest, interlocking her fingers.

Where to start?

She slips her fingers through a couple of seals, and she puts a minor auditory genjutsu in place around her and Gai. To any eavesdroppers, they're still laying in silence.

"You were right, earlier," she says. "Something's not right."

At her words, Gai sits up and frowns down at her. "What is it?"

"Something too big to try and explain right now."

Haruko turns her head to lock eyes with him.

Gai doesn't argue; he simply nods. "Okay. How can I help?"

She would rather that Gai doesn't help—she doesn't want him to get involved in this any more than he already is. But she can't do this on her own, and she needs to get to Minato.

She suspects that Danzo has at least one or two agents trailing her; looking back on her interactions with Minato, he probably has for far longer than she thought.

It was creepy before. Now, it's dangerous.

Danzo would have no qualms about eliminating her at this point if she attempted to back out of the mission or open up about the inner workings of ROOT, both of which she plans to do. If there's somebody hiding outside of her house, even just leaving the house might be enough to spark a confrontation.

"I need to find Minato, but I don't know how," she says. "I need tell him about what's happening, he can help—"

"He is not in the village."

Haruko sits up. "Since when?"

"A few days ago," he says. "The team was called to a mission on the frontlines."

What a coincidence it is that Minato would happen to be taking his team through their first bouts on the frontlines just when Danzo has this mission ready for her. What a pain.

"Kushina?" she asks.

"She is home," Gai says.

Perfect.

"She'll help. I'm not sure how much she knows about all this, but I know that she's probably the safest person to be with right now."

And Kushina might be able to help with the seal. Kushina's right up there with Minato and Jiraiya when it comes to seal mastery—if anybody can think up a counter for it, it'll be Kushina.

Gai goes to get up, saying, "Then we must go—"

Haruko lays a hand on his arm and carefully pulls him back down next to her. "Not so fast."

"What is it?"

"There are probably people watching me."

A little crease forms between his eyebrows. "Probably?"

"I can't tell for sure," she says. "But there's a pretty high chance of it."

"So we cannot just go over to visit Kushina."

"Best not to."

Gai frowns. "You could avert their attention with a clone."

"I'd rather not."

If that's their only option, she'll do it. But right now, Haruko can't stomach the idea of another version of herself walking around the village.

"I could provide a distraction while you run to their apartment," Gai offers.

She flicks him on the ear. "No."

"But you must get to Kushina."

"And you need to, too," she says. "I don't want to split up and give them the chance to use you against me if things go sour."

Gai's expression darkens, and for some reason, this is the point where she thinks that the reality of the situation has truly started to set in. Where he's started to understand that there is a tangible danger lurking in the shadows.

"We should simply evade them, then," Gai says. "If we leave together and head towards the center of the village, it may appear as if we are simply going into the market sections."

"And how do we get to the apartments?"

He falters.

And then it occurs to Haruko. "Oh."

They don't _need_ to get to the apartments—there might be a way to have Kushina come to them.

Gai instantly leans towards her, eyes wide. "What?"

"The have a phone, don't they?" she asks.

Phones are still very much in the process of development in this world, but she knows that landlines grew more commonplace while she was away. At this point, most people in the middle class and above have landlines, and there are places where phones can be accessed by the rest of the population for free.

"Yes!" he says. "Yes, they got one last year!"

"And you know their number?" she asks.

"I have it written down. Minato gave it to me."

"Good. I've got a load of library books in my room that are a month overdue. We can walk them over to the library and talk to her using their phone."

"No."

Haruko raises an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"You must stay here," he says.

"Gai, I don't want you out there alone."

"If I leave alone, it is unlikely that anybody will believe something weird is happening. I am not the one they suspect."

"And what if they do?"

"Then I will deal with it," he tells her firmly, his hands tightening into fists in his lap.

She doesn't want him being alone just like she doesn't want him being involved in this mess in the first place, but she no longer has a choice. And she has to remember—Gai is no pushover. He's currently up for a jonin promotion at fourteen years old and frankly, in a fight, he's far more capable than she is. He doesn't need her to defend him. More than anything, she'd get in his way and distract him.

She can also see the determination in his face; he's made up his mind on this. Haruko can be stubborn, but she's got nothing on Gai. If this is what he thinks is best he'll dig in his heels and nothing she can do will sway him.

Haruko lets out a breath. "Alright."

Somebody might follow Gai for a bit, but she doubts they would deem him suspicious once they realized he was heading to the library. He isn't their main target and if he doesn't raise huge red flags, he won't be worth their time.

She hopes, at least.

Gai nods. He relaxes, the tension easing from him. "What do I say to her?"

"Nothing about what's actually happening," she says. "I get the feeling that somebody is going to be listening in to your conversation with her."

"Then… how do I get her to come over right away?"

A small smile tugs at Haruko's lips. "Tell her that neither of us have had dinner and that if she brings us Ichiraku's, I'll pay for it."

.

.

Haruko sits in the living room on the floor, cross legged, cycling through a few cat's cradle patterns as she waits for their plan to unfold.

Butterflies vibrate in her stomach. Her chest is oddly tight. As her fingers loop through the bright red string her entangled around her hands, she can see them shaking.

 _Nerves_.

They're rather novel to experience, for her. Ama had her nerves—or the ability to comprehend them, at least—drilled right out of her. If it weren't such a dire situation, she might relish in the mundaneness of it. But it is, so she can't. She just has to sit and suffer like all the poor mortals of this realm.

Thankfully, Haruko doesn't have to stew for long. Half an hour after Gai first left, Kushina kicks down her front door.

She marches into their house. She holds Gai like a sack of potatoes with one arm and carries a massive takeout bag with the other. The pair of hot pink kunai-patterned pajama pants and matching shirt tip Haruko off to the fact that Kushina had probably been getting ready for bed, as does the fact that Kushina has her hair twined in a single, massive braid down her back. Haruko half expects Kushina to be in her slippers, but it seems that even Kushina draws the line somewhere and instead has on a pair of black ninja sandals.

Kushina dumps Gai down on the ground and drops the bag onto their dining room table. "So," she says. "What the fuck is going on?"

Haruko slips her thumb out of one string and hooks it through another. "A lot."

"Uh huh." Kushina points an accusing finger at Haruko. "You owe me 2,000 yen."

"Put it on my tab."

Kushina opens her mouth to respond, but something stops her. She turns to squint at one of their walls with a fiery passion in her violet eyes, her hands planted on her hips. The offending wall is devoid of decorations and seemingly undeserving of her ire.

After a minute, she blows out a breath. "Minato's gonna shit himself when he gets home," she mumbles.

"Oh," Haruko says. "So you do know."

"Not all of it, but I think I know enough. He warned me to keep an eye on you two while he was gone—now I see why. You've got two or three dudes just sitting out there." She waves her hand. "I'm not too good at this chakra sensing business, so I can't be sure, but there are _definitely_ ninja outside your house right now."

Haruko sighs. "Voyeurists," she says. "How tacky."

Kushina side eyes her. "Yeah, right. So—on a scale of one to ten, how concerned should I be right now, squirt?"

"Contextualize the scale."

"One being this is the perfect time for me to nap and paint my nails," Kushina says, holding up one finger. Her hands flare out to display all ten fingers. "Ten being if I don't stick my nose in this situation right now, you're liable to be burnt to a crisp and have your ashes scattered around the Forest of Death for the tigers to eat."

Haruko drops the string from both of her index fingers and nabs them with her middle fingers, pulling them tight. She considers it with a little hum. "Eight?"

"If I don't intervene, we _might_ find your dead body hanging from one of the power lines tomorrow morning?"

"Yeah," Haruko says. "That's fair."

Gai squawks from his spot on the ground.

"Then I think I'm bringing both of you back to the apartment with me where we're going to wait for Minato to come home and deal with this mess," Kushina answers cheerfully. "They'd have to be stupid to try anything while we're in there—that place is covered to Madara's asscrack and back with security seals."

Gai, recovered from his trip and subsequent dropping, sits up. He rubs at his head. "What of how we get there?"

"Easy. I grab you two, I grab the takeout, and I shunshin across Konoha. Minato should be back in a day or two, so I'll probably just stick you there for a bit."

Haruko nods and lets the string drop from her fingers. "So we should pack some clothes and essentials."

"Yeah, and quickly," Kushina says. "I'll help. Come on."

.

.

They get about five minutes to toss things into their bags, then Kushina flashes them to the door of the apartment she shares with Minato.

Haruko wonders if the ninja outside realized what happened, and what they'll do now.

Kushina practically pushes them through the door and slams it shut behind her, placing her palm against it. Haruko can feel chakra around them flare up and fizzle out. The security seals.

The seals are painted onto the baseboards all along the walls, weave a circular pattern the back of the door, dance across the ceilings in flowing lines. Haruko drops her bag and wanders over to the nearest one, tracing her finger along the swirling patterns. Kushina's work, she has no doubt.

"That's done," Kushina says. "Now, let's get to the actually important matter: dinner."

Kushina heads off into the kitchen with the takeout bag.

"Ah," Gai says. "What do we do with our bags?"

"Just leave them on the ground for now. We can deal with them later," Kushina calls back.

She hears Gai drop his bag on the ground with a dull thump. He walks over to her, his socked feet rhythmically patting against the floors as he goes, and wraps his hand around her wrist. She blinks, her attention drawn away from the seals. Gai smiles. He pulls her to her feet and walks her over to the kitchen, where Kushina already has the ramen out in bowls.

Kushina runs through a couple of hand signs and spews out a tiny cloud of flames from her mouth, heating up each bowl one by one. When Kushina hands it to her, Haruko takes her bowl with a small nod and settles down at the kitchen table, glancing around the apartment.

The decorating is surprisingly modern. Very unlike what Haruko would expect from a house that Kushina lives in. She wonders if they split the house responsibilities in half when they moved in—Kushina dealt with the security seals while Minato did all of the decorating.

At the thought, an image of Minato furniture shopping pops into Haruko's head and she smiles to herself. What she would pay to see that.

There's a simple lilac couch and chair set in the living room surrounding a glass-top table, and photographs and plants line the beige walls. A full bookshelf sits on one wall, an olive-green set of drawers against the other. It's simple but cozy. In a lot of ways, it reminds Haruko of her own house.

Haruko feels a poke in her side. She blinks, and finds Kushina watching her as Gai digs into his ramen with gusto.

On cue, her stomach looses a war cry of mighty proportions, furious over its continual denial of dinner, and she glances down at her belly. What power, what might. A fearsome warrior who refuses to suffer through the indignities she has thus levelled against it. How dare she to prolong its lust for sustenance? And so to ease her sins, she eats.

Once they've all finished eating and washed dinner down with a cup of tea, Kushina gets up and heads into the hallway. "I can show you guys to the rooms you'll be staying in," she says, waving them over. "I'll probably put Haruko in the guest room, and I'll stick Gai in Kakashi's kind-of-his-but-not-really bedroom."

"Ah," Gai says. "I do not want to intrude on my rival's space."

"I doubt he'll care. He barely even uses it, honestly—he likes the couch better."

Gai hesitates.

"Make a mess of his bed," Haruko says, staring down at the table. "Assert your dominance."

"A—assert… my dominance."

"Yes, exactly. That's the spirit. This is the kind of power play that'll give you an edge the next time the two of you compete."

"This feels like cheating," Gai says.

"How?"

"He is not here to make a play of his own!"

"That's kind of the point, Gai."

"Yes, but—"

"And that's enough of that," Kushina says.

She grabs Gai by the shoulders and steers him towards Kakashi's bedroom. Haruko distinctly hears Gai whispers the words, "For the betterment of our rivalry" as he walks inside and drops his pack on the floor.

Kushina comes back out. Haruko expects Kushina to drag her into a bedroom, too, but Kushina stops at the end of the hallway and leans her shoulder against the wall. She meets Haruko's eyes with an intense stare of her own.

"I won't lie, I don't know a lot about what's going on," Kushina says, her voice carefully lowered. "But I _do_ know that whatever it is, we're going to figure it out."

Haruko folds her hands together on the table. "That's a lofty promise."

"And I have every intention of keeping it. Minato does, too."

"Yeah," Haruko says, nodding. "I know."

"Damn right you do." Kushina goes over and grabs the bag that Haruko left on the floor earlier, hefting it over her shoulder. "Now come on. You look like you're ready to drop."

She is.

She feels drained, like she hasn't slept in a week. Her body _aches_. It's not from training, since she didn't do any this morning—the blame falls on the emotional rollercoaster she's been thrown through in the last six hours.

Haruko forces herself to her feet, using the table to help push herself out of the chair. She stares down at her hand. The burn from cooking with Gai is still there, the skin around her palm puckered and red, a scar that'll never go away. But it will lighten, given time. And she supposes that that's what matters in the end.

"Thank you," Haruko says. "For coming and getting us on short notice, and for bringing us here."

Kushina smiles at her. It's the kind of smile that makes Haruko think that if Kushina decides to have kids one day, she'll be a fantastic mother. "Don't mention it," she says. "I'm just glad I could help."

Haruko lets Kushina lead her into the guest room. It's a lot like the rest of the house—modern, filled with earth tones, and comfortable. Haruko drops onto the bed without bothering to take off her socks or dress. She's tired and pajamas are always uglier than her dresses.

Sleep has always been a bit elusive for Haruko, but tonight, as soon as her head hits the pillow and her eyes shut, she's dead asleep.

* * *

One second, Haruko's sitting in silence, reading a fuinjutsu book that she can barely understand a fraction of. The next, the house is full of familiar laughter and shouting. Haruko studies the clock on the wall. Seven in the evening—almost exactly a day since Kushina came and picked them up. She expects nothing less from Minato.

He's the first one to emerge from his and Kushina's bedroom, a wide smile on his face that evaporates the second he sees Haruko sitting on his couch, reading one of his ridiculously complex books on fuinjutsu theory. Obito stumbles into his back.

"Hello," Haruko says, raising a hand to wave.

Rin pokes her head around both of them. "Haruko?" she asks. She squeezes out of the room. "What are you doing here?"

Haruko locks eyes with Minato. Blithely, she says, "Just visiting."

"Hey!" Obito shouts. "What're you doing in here alone? That's super creepy, even for you!"

"If you think this is me being creepy, then you've got a lot to learn." Haruko wiggles her fingers like a cartoon witch casting a spell, her entire expression completely blank. "For I am a Sanderson sister, and on the last day of October each year, I feast on the energy of a young child to renew my youth and vigor."

Obito leans over towards Kakashi and whispers, "What the hell is she talking about?"

Kakashi rolls his eyes, knocking Obito away with his shoulder.

Haruko jerks her hands forward. "Boo."

Much to her delight, Obito jumps at that, even as he tries to play it off. Rin giggles.

Minato seems to snap out of his daze and steps forward, pulling Kakashi and Obito out with him. "Alright, alright. All of you go on and rest—no training tomorrow. Take the day off and relax."

Obito gapes. "Are you—you're _not_ going to address her just… just _being_ in here?"

"Nope," Minato says. "Now shoo."

Rin, ever the tactful one, grabs Obito by the back of his shirt and drags him kicking and screaming across the apartment. "Make sure you rest, too, Minato, okay?" she says.

Minato eyes Haruko. "We'll see."

"You need to rest!" Rin says, halfway to the door. "And eat something, too!"

A fond smile takes over Minato's face, though he doesn't respond.

Rin points at her eyes and then points at Minato menacingly. Minato shrugs.

"Impossible," Rin mutters. But she perks back up and waves at Haruko and Kakashi. "Bye Haruko! Bye Kakashi! I'll see you guys later!"

All the while, Obito wriggles in her grip and shouts about his non-existent right to know why Haruko is stalking his teacher. Rin kicks the door shut behind them.

And then it's one.

Kakashi stands with his arms behind his head and stares Minato down like the sullen teenager hyped up on angst that he is.

"I dismissed you, too," Minato tells him, his voice hard but not unkind.

Kakashi doesn't budge in the slightest. Instead, he says, "I know something important is going on."

"Something important, yes, but it's very much not your business," Haruko says.

He scowls at her.

Minato sighs. "She's not entirely wrong. I wouldn't kick you out without a reason, Kakashi, you know that." He runs his hand through his hair, and he winces as his fingers catch on knots and clumps of mud. "You're right that something's going on. But it's S-rank information that I can't let you in on. Nobody else can hear the conversation we're going to have, not even Kushina or Gai."

Minato looks at her expectantly. She isn't sure if he expects her to protest, but if that's the case, she has no intention of doing so. Gai has seen enough—he doesn't need to be privy to all of the gruesome details that she and Minato are going to get into.

She can see the war in Kakashi's expression. The desire to obey what is, essentially, a direct order, battling with the burning desire to not be left out.

"Kushina and Gai are out grocery shopping," Haruko says. "Gai was aching to stretch his legs, since we've been cooped up in here all day."

Minato nods. "Why don't you go and help Kushina pick something out for dinner."

Kakashi's hands fall to his side. His gaze flicks between the two of them. Without a word, he shunshins out of the room.

A sigh escapes Minato, soaked in the kind of resigned exasperation that can only really come from years spent dealing with Kakashi. "Excuse me for a second."

Minato pops out of the room now, too, leaving Haruko alone. She opens the book back up and keeps on reading. It's not something she knows much about or cares much about, really.

Nonou never touched fuinjutsu and so Haruko saw no reason to, either. But one can only train with Kushina for so long before it inevitably makes an appearance. They covered it over two or three weeks, long enough for Rin and Haruko to be able to make their own explosive seals. When introducing the lesson, Kushina had imparted upon them the sage words of, "If literally everything else I ever teach you fails, this won't. Nothing kills a dude faster than blowing him up, _that_ I can promise you."

It was a fun series of lessons, right up there with classics such as "How to Cut a Guy's Dick off With a Kunai 101" and "The Five Best Pressure Points to Send Your Opponent Down in Agonizing Pain." The prior was particularly interesting—Kushina had a field day when she figured out Rin could use chakra scalpels already, and insisted on accounting for that in the lesson, much to Rin's mounting discomfort.

Haruko finds she enjoys the lessons more for their entertainment value than any actual personal improvement, though some of the information has been useful. Haruko can firmly say her left hook and calligraphy have never been better.

And she can say that while fuinjutsu theory is mostly gibberish to her, she finds it to be _interesting_ gibberish. It reminds her a lot of reading genjutsu theory. Possibilities, limitations, and the inevitable loopholes to those possibilities and limitations. And that's just on a seal to seal basis because like genjutsu, fuinjutsu is an art where, theoretically speaking, anything can be done if you can figure out a way to do it. There's just way more icky numbers involved.

Haruko closes the book over her thumb when she hears Minato pop back into the room.

"Good, okay," Minato mumbles. "Okay." He clears his throat. "Kushina said that she'll keep Kakashi occupied long enough to let us chat for a bit."

He comes over and drops down onto the chair near her, rubbing a tired hand over his face. He looks like a complete mess, covered in mud and blood in equal measure, visible bags under his eyes.

"You look terrible," Haruko tells him.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Minato makes a vague gesture at her. "Alright, so. Hit me with it. Short version of why you're here?"

Haruko sets the book down in her lap and opens her mouth wide enough for him to see the seal pressed into the back of her tongue. Everything about him sharpens instantly, like a predator coiling itself up to strike at the first scent of blood.

"To answer your question from a few weeks ago," Haruko says, her words garbled, "I can't tell you anything."

Minato is in front of her in seconds, his thumb on her chin to open her mouth wider and angle it to get a good look at the seal. "What _is_ that?" he mumbles. Then he seems to remember himself and drops his hand, taking a step back. "Sorry. That was, uh. Inappropriate."

Haruko just leaves her mouth open.

More hesitantly this time, Minato inspects the seal, muttering to himself the entire time. "Hexagonal… even numbered. Curse seal, clearly, but… what's the root of it?"

"I don't know much about how it works," Haruko says. "I've never activated it before."

"If I were to guess? I'd say it incapacitates you somehow. Probably intended to keep information from spreading—the placement is meaningful, here. Symbolism is just one of many aspects of fuinjutsu and I doubt this specific placement is a coincidence. Working on that, if the goal is to keep you from saying something incriminating, it'd silence you. But I imagine Danzo is too clever to settle for just verbally leashing you, so I'd assume that it'll prevent you from being able to communicate full stop, be it verbally or through writing or gestures of some kind." Minato rubs his index fingers along the joint of his jaw. "But I can't say for sure until either you activate it or I take the time to expand it."

"I could activate it," Haruko says.

Minato's eyes narrow. "Don't."

"Why not?"

"Because it could be dangerous," he says. "I'd rather not take the risk, considering who we're dealing with. Better to unwind it safely."

Haruko tilts her head, her bronze eyes scanning him. "So you're going to try and release the seal."

"Of course," Minato says, looking at her oddly. "What did you think I was going to do?"

"I haven't really thought about it, honestly."

It's interesting for her, somebody who thinks and analyzes and plans. She hasn't given much of anything thought since entering the apartment. She's been content to sit around and read books she doesn't understand instead of contending with the disastrous situation that got her into this predicament in the first place.

" _We're going to figure it out_ ," is what Kushina had said. And when Haruko said she believed that, she meant it.

"It looks like it's a bit of a complex seal, but it's nothing that Kushina and I can't crack together in a few days," he says. "And if we really can't get it, I can send a message to my teacher and he'd probably be willing to give us some advice."

Haruko nods. "Okay."

"Okay," Minato echoes. He shifts his weight a bit. "So…"

"What?"

"I take it that you being here, and everything, means that you're willing to cooperate with me?"

"As much as I can."

Minato grins at her, the gesture equal parts warm and wild. "Alright. Then, I've got some files that I'm going to need. I'll be back in a minute."

Some files is an understatement.

Minato comes back with an armful of papers that he dumps all over the dining room table, so many that the impact sends a shudder through the poor table. He lays them all out. In total, Haruko counts four thick files.

He took the chance to change as well, and he now has on a long-sleeved grey shirt and a fresh set of dark blue uniform pants. His hair is still a complete disaster, though. Only a shower will be able to fix that.

Haruko marks her spot in the book and sets it aside to wander over.

The files each have labels. Her fingers skim over each one as she reads, "Current Agents, Past Agents, Accounted for Missions, and Unaccounted for Missions." She traces her thumb over the tabs that stick out of each file, marking subsections. There's at least three in each file. "You've been thorough."

"This is only information dating back the last ten years," Minato says. "If I had more time, I'd go back further, but I needed to be careful. You have to watch your step when you're preparing to accuse one of the most powerful men in the village of committing treason."

Haruko blinks and turns to look at him. "Treason?"

Minato gestures for her to sit down and does so himself.

Once she does, she waits for him to start talking, but Minato holds his silence and settles back in his chair, pinning her under his calculating gaze.

So Haruko grabs for the nearest file, the one labelled Current Agents, and jumps immediately to the "Of High Concern" tab.

Haruko lifts up the nearest sheet of paper. The face of a young boy stares back at her, the name 'Kinoe' printed along the top of the photograph. A ROOT mask sits on the side of his head, but she could have figured out that he was an agent without it—he has the vacancy in his eyes that gives him away.

She wonders if she has that vacancy in her own gaze. She'd like to think she could see it in herself, but the reflection in a mirror only shows you what you want to see. And that's assuming you know what to look for in the first place.

Haruko leafs through a few others.

Eventually, she stumbles upon a painfully familiar photograph. A woman whose expression is filled with kindness. The photo is black and white, but Haruko can imagine the verdant green eyes and light blonde hair anyways.

Ice fills her veins, but there's a bit of fire there, too—and not the good kind. Haruko sorts through the feelings like she's a dealer at a casino, pulling each card from the top of the deck and flipping it over to reveal its face to the eager onlookers. The cold, the pains of betrayal and abandonment. And that shred of fire? It's a rare one to her. _Anger_. At the realization that Haruko was nothing but a tool to this woman, just the same as Danzo. That all their time spent together was a grooming process so that Haruko could be the perfect agent one day.

Minato gently pulls the file from her hands. "Nonou Yakushi," he reads. "A jonin. Currently, one of the captains in our Medics Corp. Since she does most of her work in village, she splits her time between her duties within the Medics Corp and other odd jobs, mostly focused around children. The two longest so far have been her jobs at the Academy and the orphanage. They expect her to become the head matron pretty soon."

Haruko mulls over her words. The best way to do this is to work based only on what _Minato_ is saying. She can't introduce any new information that has to do with ROOT, not explicitly. She'll have to work through asking questions and general comments. "You think she might be dangerous."

"I do," Minato says. "I think she might do with those kids exactly what she did to you—pick the ones with high potential and send them over to Danzo. As Head Matron, she'll be able to easily cover up the disappearances of any children she might send into ROOT."

"Why would she need to cover it up?" she asks.

"There are… rules around recruitment," Minato says. "You, for example, were recruited in the way all ROOT agents are supposed to be. Lord Hokage was made aware of your transition from a part of the regular forces into ROOT and he agreed to it. Theoretically, Danzo isn't supposed to be picking up civilian children and bringing them into ROOT. He's only to pull from Academy students or our regular genin forces."

"But he does pick up civilian children?" Haruko asks.

"Yes, among others he's not supposed to be targeting." Minato flips to the last tab of the Current Agents file and shows it to her. "All of these agents are ones I have reason to believe Lord Hokage was never consulted on, nor is even aware are currently ROOT agents. Most were under the radar because the regulations would have prevented them from being recruited legitimately."

Haruko counts over fifty agents on top of the six hundred that Danzo already has under his command. All of these profiles seem different, too. The other profiles were typed up with a typewriter, while these are handwritten.

"Handmade profiles," she says.

"Mostly," he says. "For obvious reasons, these agents didn't have profiles made up. So… I had to write them myself, based on what I could gather from mission reports and accounts. Some of them had standard files, those who were part of the regular forces at some point, and I could glean some information from there, but… most of them had nothing."

It strikes her, how much work he put into all of this.

Minato taps the file with his index finger. "And these are just the ones that I believe are still currently active," Minato says. He spreads his hands. "There are probably agents that I can't find any trace of, inactive or active, that were never accounted for, either."

One by one, he moves through the pages, his eyes locked on them. Only a handful of the profiles have photographs to go along with them, and many of the profiles are short, comprising of one or two paragraphs, if even that.

What a sad existence that must be. Known to nobody, your entire mark on the world summed up in as many words as a bog standard obituary.

"There are hard limits to how many agents Danzo can recruit. ANBU is the same way. As useful as they are, we only want so many of them running around to contain the security risk." Minato gives a wry smile. "But I'm sure I don't need to tell you that."

She wonders if he realizes just how accurate that statement truly is. Unlikely. But even so, it hits her right in the sternum and forces an uneven breath from her.

Minato moves back through the file and pulls out a profile. He hands it to her.

Her own face stares back at her.

The first picture on her profile is from her graduation day, at six years old. The second is the one they took of her right after she was given her chunin promotion. There's three years between the two and she looks almost exactly the same in both photos, save for a change of clothes.

Something else stirs inside of her. It takes her a bit longer to decipher it, this time, and even then she isn't entirely sure she's come out with the right translation. A little warm, a little cold, mostly sharp. Bitterness, perhaps? Tinged with a sprinkle of regret? Bitter that she ended up here, regretful that she didn't do something earlier.

But there's still a part of her that remembers how _happy_ she was to be learning from Nonou. How she enjoyed the dancing, the makeup, and the way it felt like genjutsu was a new world at her fingertips that was waiting for her to explore it. A world that was scary, intimidating, and absolutely thrilling.

The two seem irreconcilable. Yet, a part of her is certain that they are, that negative and positive emotions can exist simultaneously, because the world is anything but black and white if you take a second to see with more than just your own biased eyes.

Wordlessly, Minato reaches over and flips to the next page of her profile, pointing to a specific section of it. The part of her profile with the timeline of her career. Most entries have only brief descriptions, intended to document rather than explain.

The entry he's got his finger on is dated November 14th, year forty-seven. The day she was attacked by Suna ninja. Haruko frowns, unsure as to where he's going with this.

Then Minato opens up the file labelled Accounted For Missions, and something cold and hard settles in her gut. It's a feeling like the nerves, except it lacks the ambiguity—dread.

The document he pulls out is the one sitting on top of the file. His eyes flick over it. "This document includes mission reports from two agents, Setsuna and Yori. Both of them describe how on November 12th, year forty-seven, four of them were dispatched to the south-western region of the Land of Fire. They were instructed to kill a Kusa spy who was headed towards the village with the intent to infiltrate. Agents Roku and Kei were killed in the fight."

Her chest squeezes, and each time she breathes, she can't quite get enough air in her lungs.

She gets the distinct feeling that Minato's comment earlier, claiming that she knew of security risk containment, was far more calculated than she gave him credit for.

"Danzo is the one who pushed for you to be declared KIA early on in the war," Minato says quietly. "It's not something the village does often, and it only does it for its ANBU divisions. Generally, it's for cases where the nature of the work is so dangerous that it's unlikely the ninja is going to return regardless, and it's always done with the explicit permission of the ninja in question. It's just easier to declare early to make things harder to trace back to us. Once a ninja is marked as KIA, their file is pulled from every source other than Lord Hokage's personal collection, limiting the chance that spies within the village can gather information on our more questionable missions."

Minato sighs. "You were never supposed to make it back, Haruko. Danzo went out of his way to ensure that."

"And yet, here I am," Haruko murmurs.

She shouldn't be surprised that Danzo was plotting her death that early, but she is. She was so useful to him, so loyal, and he was ready to put her down because she knew too much when she'd never so much as nipped at him.

Her hands fist in her skirt at the thought, and she forcibly unclenches her hands and smooths the skirt back down.

"You surprised him, I think," Minato says. "There are indications in Nonou Yakushi's files that she received severe disciplinary actions in the days that followed."

The petty part of her feels no twinge of sympathy for Nonou.

"Dad, Gai and I did a lot of training on our own. I studied for myself when I had time," she says. "I don't think Nonou was ever aware of how much I taught myself."

Most of the training was between Dai and Gai, but she was there enough that she picked up bits here and there. And Dai always made sure her taijutsu was passable.

Her time spent in the library was more frequent. She never struggled with ninjutsu, she just didn't have much use for it because combat was never her goal. More than anything, like with fuinjutsu, she just found the theory behind how jutsu worked to be interesting, and ended up picking up some useful skills along the way.

It was never anything she thought was Nonou's business, so she didn't mention it.

Minato nods. "After the attack, your profile received an update as well. Your taijutsu and ninjutsu score were bumped up, and you were marked as having potential kenjutsu experience."

That, at least, is one thing she doesn't have—that blow with the sword to finish the fight was luck.

"That mission," she says. "It was accounted for."

"It was."

"Does that mean that Lord Hokage knew about it?"

"It does."

She thinks about whether she really wants to ask what she's about to ask. She finds that yes, she does. "Did he know?"

"The true purpose of the mission?" Minato asks. His gaze hardens. "No, I don't think so."

And she supposes that she couldn't have expected him to. With as many ninja under his command as there are, the Hokage can only know about so much, and the mission seems routine if examined without the contextual information she possesses.

But it bothers her, just like it bothers her that Danzo was so quick to discard her or that Nonou played her like a fiddle for three years. That the Hokage, the one person who could have stepped in, who had all of the information at his fingertips, didn't see what was happening right under his nose.

"What do I know that's so dangerous?" she asks.

He picks up the Unaccounted For Missions folder and waves it around. "You see, that brings us to this lovely folder," he says. "These are all of the ROOT missions I've been able to uncover where there is no mention in any documents that they occurred."

"And some of my missions are in there?"

"All of your missions since coming back to the village," he says. "And I'm guessing a few of yours from the war. But I haven't been able to get any information on those—Danzo keeps what you did under lock and key." He drops the folder and shrugs. "I'm not going to know a lot for sure until we break the seal and you can actually talk about what you did in the war and what your missions since coming back from the village have been like."

The folder isn't too big, about an eighth of the size of the Accounted For Missions folder, but that it exists at all is grounds for concern.

"How, exactly, have you been getting this information?" she asks.

"A few sources," Minato says. "I've gotten into contact with a few ex-ROOT agents who were willing to talk, but a lot of it has come from my teacher, actually. Jiraiya. He's the current spymaster for the village. Once I told him what I thought was going on, he agreed to get me what he could. Most of what I've been doing is compiling and cross-checking what Jiraiya's sent my way, though Lord Hokage gave me access to some useful stuff, as well."

"And I'm the one who led you to start looking."

"Yes, you are," he says. "Though I will admit, this entire thing has gotten far larger than I ever imagined it would."

She nods, sitting back in her chair.

No wonder Danzo threw her under the bus. With how deeply Minato's been looking into this, the best thing Danzo could do was make her as discreditable as possible. And as much as it burns, the knowledge that now, she'll be able to burn him back tenfold, is better than sugar for forcing the pill down.

"Only a third of the unaccounted for missions have anything close to a report to go along with them. That accounts for about a tenth of the total missions taken in the last five years," Minato says. "For most, we're working on the assumption that there was a mission based on timeline discrepancies and hints from other reports."

She can see where the problem is, then. "A lot of smoke but only a few flames."

"Exactly."

"And if you can break the seal, you think I'll be the spark that can get a real fire going."

" _When_ we break the seal, that's the hope, yes," he says. "Danzo's been going behind Lord Hokage's back for years, now. I don't know what he's trying to do, but I don't think it's anything good." He frowns. "And I'm definitely not a fan of his methods of doing it."

"Shouldn't the smoke be enough for that?" she asks. "It may not be a lot of definitive information, but it—" She pauses, unsure if she's about to cross a line. " _If_ what you have is true, that sounds like enough to at least have his leash tightened, no?"

Minato folds his fingers together and rests his chin on it. He lets a slow breath out of his nose. "I don't just want him to check him," he says. His gaze sharpens, and Haruko feels the air fizzle and crackle. "I want to end him."

Now that—that is a sentiment she can get behind, wholeheartedly.

Haruko nods, her lips curling up into a smile. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay," she repeats. "But you should shower before you start working on the seal. You smell like somebody left a dead fish out in the sun for a week."

"Ah." He laughs a little. "Uh. Yeah. I think a shower would be nice."

"And take a nap. You still look pretty awful. You know, not getting enough sleep can lead to you getting wrinkles really early. Like, late twenties kind of early."

His expression turns wry. "I'll take a raincheck on that nap," he says. "Not until after I've started working on undoing that seal with Kushina." He turns to look at the clock on the wall, ticking away. "I'll go and tell her that the coast is clear. By the time she gets back, I should be ready to go."

Haruko stands up. "I'm going to make some tea."

"Oh, alright," Minato says. "Uh, there should be some in the cabinet by the stove."

She won't bother with that. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a little pouch of tea leaves, waving them in front of Minato. They're peppermint, a favourite of hers—she picked a bunch of them from some random lady's garden a few weeks ago and has been making some wonderful tea with them since.

"You carry tea leaves around with you."

"Of course I do," she says.

"Right," he says, his voice monotone. "Of course you do."

"Will you want a cup?"

He stares at the leaves and slowly, he smiles back at her. It reminds Haruko a bit of how he looked at Rin, earlier. A little tired and a little confused, but undeniably fond. "You know… yeah. I think I will."

"Okay."

She wanders over to the kettle and sets it to boil on the stove.

The chair scrapes against the floor as Minato gets up and makes his way over to the bathroom, mumbling something that Haruko can't catch as he goes.

But she still has one thing she needs to say to him, before he goes. She's had it in the back of her mind their entire meeting—the thing that broke Danzo's hold on her once and for all, the true indication of the threat he presents to her home.

"I think I'll always miss the tea I drank in Tatsuno," she says.

Minato stops dead in his tracks and turn to face her. His eyebrows are knit together in undisguised confusion.

"With the ceasefire still going, I hope that some merchants might be able to start bringing it into the village," Haruko continues, not looking at Minato as she searches through their cupboards for a mug. "They can only grow it in Wind Country, you know. And with how unpredictable war can be? Well. It'd be a shame if the ceasefire didn't last long enough for a few crafty tea salesmen to make the trip."

She pauses long enough to lock her eyes with his and see a touch of wariness creep into his expression.

"Uh huh," he says.

"It's really quite vital information," Haruko says. "Tea is important, nation-altering business. It'd be a shame if somebody got in the way of it. Rather treasonous, I might think."

Minato, flexing his genius muscles, puts the pieces together faster than she expects him to. "Danzo is threatening the ceasefire?"

She draws her fingers over her lips and makes a locking motion with her finger. Then, she returns to her task of tea making.

Minato waits there for a second longer before his footsteps trail away, accompanied by the sound of more harried, confused mutterings.

Haruko checks under the sink for mugs. She checks beside the fridge. Even the unlikely places, like small drawers that don't look big enough to fit mugs, she investigates.

Finally, when she stands on her tiptoes to reach one of the cupboards above the sink, she finds the glorious mug vault and pillages it for the lone pink beauty sitting at the back of it, only just within the grasp of her piddly arms.

With her tea leaves bagged and sitting in her cup, Haruko stands in front of the sink as she waits. She leans on the counter, pushing up on it to get a look outside the window. Minato and Kushina have a plant sitting on the sill outside the window. It's basking in the warm March evening, the rim of its light blue pot damp. A patch of green breaks through the dirt. The edge of a stem, on the verge of sprouting.

Spring is here. And oh, is she ready.

* * *

AN: Thanks to **Sage Thrasher** , **MonsterCatMusicGirl** , and **Ruby** for betaing this chapter! The unsung heroes of the ff world, lemme tell ya.

So I've now cleared through my back log for this fic, so you can expect me to go back to my usual flaky update schedule, especially since I decided to give Fade to Black some love again because it's been ages since I've given that fic any attention, so I'm working up a backlog for _that_ fic before I'll be setting my sights on this fic again. Especially because my detailed plans kind of end here? So I have? A bit of planning to do? Yikes. Okay. Fun.

Anyways, thank you all for the continued support!


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